SPEECH 


OF 

HON.  CHARLES  GIBBONS, 


DELIVERED  AT 


NATIONAL  HALL,  PHILADELPHIA, 

OCTOBER  5tli,  1860, 


In  Reply  to  the  Speech  of  the  Hon.  W.  B.  Reed, 
Delivered  before  the  National  Democratic  Association, 
Sept,  4,  1860,  on  the  Presidential  Question, 

AND  IN 

VINDICATION  OF  THE  PEOPLES’  PARTY. 


PHILADELPHIA  : 

KING  &  BAIRD,  PRINTERS,  No.  607  SANSOM  STREET. 

1  8  6  0. 


. 


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*3^,01  : 

Cr*3$$ 

SPEECH  OF  MR.  GIBBONS. 


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f^rrLtljini  ctL  an_d  j3ft zLLcllll  ^iti^.En.s.  csfi  -/3* IiLLclcL<iLIlIlLcl  : 

As  a  private  citizen  of  Pennsylvania,  removed  for  some  years,  from 
an  active  participation  in  political  contests,  looking  for  no  political 
preferment,  and  desiring  none,  I  have  the  honor  to  address  you  this 
evening,  by  invitation  of  the  committee  of  the  People’s  party. 

It  seems  to  be  understood  that,  I  shall  have  something  to  say  in 
reply  to  an  extraordinary  speech  recently  made  in  this  city,  by  a  gentle¬ 
man  who  pursues  politics  as  a  profession,  and  who  has  been  the 
recipient  of  honors  and  emoluments  from  two  or  three  different  politi¬ 
cal  parties,  at  different  periods  of  his  life.  [Laughter.]  I  hope  it  is 
not  expected  that  I  am  to  forget  for  the  time,  anything  that  is  due  to 
justice,  honor  or  truth  ;  for,  however  little  those  virtues  may  have  been 
observed  by  some  distinguished  political  leaders,  in  their  recent  speeches 
to  citizens  of  Philadelphia,  I  hold  them,  nevertheless,  to  be  better  than 
mountains  of  gold,  and  more  to  be  cherished  than  the  highest  honors 
that  a  people  can  bestow.  [Cheers.] 

With  this  understanding,  I  shall  endeavour  to  meet  what  seems  to 
,-be  the  public  expectation,  and  also  to  vindicate  the  course  of  the 
•-  People’s  party  in  its  efforts  to  preserve  and  perpetuate  the  blessings  of 
liberty,  under  the  Constitution,  as  the  fathers  made,  understood  and 
administered  it,  and  to  secure  to  the  whole  country,  the  prosperity 
%  and  peace  that  ought  to  flow  from  a  Republican  government,  when 
^  justly  and  honestly  conducted.  [Cheeks.] 

The  popular  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  as  is  very  well  known, 
was  an  active  member  of  the  Whig  party,  and  fought  its  battles  year 
after  year,  until  it  ceased  to  exist.  The  protection  of  American  indus¬ 
try  and  the  encouragement  of  peaceful  arts  by  friendly  legislation — 
the  improvement  of  the  rivers  and  harbors  of  the  country,  whenever 
demanded  for  the  better  development  of  its  wealth  and  the  safety 
^  of  its  commerce — an  honest  and  economical  administration  of  the 
Federal  government  and  the  supremacy  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  in 
all  questions  arising  between  States,  or  the  citizens  of  different  States, 
x  'f}  were  the  main  points  which  that  party  sought  to  establish,  and  which 
they  labored  in  vain  to  secure. 

On  the  question  of  slavery,  every  Whig  had  and  exercised  the  right 
,  4  to  think  for  himself ;  and,  whether  he  inclined  to  the  one  extreme  or 
.3  the  other,  neither  the  party  nor  its  chief  was  held  accountable  for  his 


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opinions.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  the  great  majority  of  the 
Whigs  were  opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery,  and  I  believe  that  no 
prominent  man  in  the  party,  ever  doubted  the  constitutional  power  of 
Congress  to  exclude  it  from  the  territories.  Certainly  the  power  was 
never  questioned  by  Mr.  Clay,  or  Mr.  Webster. 

I  think  the  last  time  Mr.  Clay  expressed  his  views  on  this  subject 
was  but  little  more  than  a  year  before  his  death,  during  the"  debate  on 
the  Compromise  resolutions,  which  he  introduced  into  the  Senate. 
Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  had  declared  that  “he  would  never  take  less  than 
the  Missouri  Compromise  line,  extended  to  the  Pacific  ocean,  with  the 
specific  recognition  of  the  right  to  hold  slaves  in  the  territory  below 
that  line ;  and  that  before  such  territories  should  be  admitted  into  the 
Union  as  States,  slaves  might  be  taken  there  from  any  of  the  United 
States,  at  the  option  of  the  owners.” 

To  this  Mr.  Clay  replied  : — 

“I  am  extremely  sorry  to  hear  the  Senator  from  Mississippi,  say  that  he 
requires,  first,  the  extension  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line  to  the  Pacific ;  and 
also  that  he  is  not  satisfied  with  that,  hut  requires,  if  I  understand  him  correctly, 
a  positive  provision  for  the  admission  of  slavery  south  of  that  line.  And  now, 
sir,  coming  from  a  slave  State,  as  I  do,  I  owe  it  to  myself,  I  owe  it  to  truth, 
I  owe  it  to  the  subject,  to  state  that  no  earthly  power  could  induce  me  to  vote 
for  a  specific  measure  for  the  introduction  of  slavery  where  it  had  not  before 
existed,  either  south  or  north  of  that  line.  Coming,  as  I  do,  from  a  slave  State, 
it  is  my  solemn,  deliberate,  and  well  matured  determination  that  no  power — no 
earthly  power,  shall  compel  me  to  vote  for  the  positive  introduction  of  slavery 
either  south  or  north  of  that  line.  Sir,  while  you  reproach,  and  justly,  too,  our 
British  ancestors  for  the  introduction  of  this  institution  upon  the  continent  of 
America,  I  am,  for  one,  unwilling  that  the  posterity  of  the  present  inhabitants  of 
California  and  of  New  Mexico,  shall  reproach  us  for  doing  to  them  just  what  we 
reproach  Great  Britain  for  doing  to  us.” 

Mr.  Webster  made  his  great  speech  on  the  Compromise  measures 
in  the  Senate,  on  the  1th  of  March,  1850.  He  then  referred  to  the 
sentiments  he  had  expressed  on  the  slavery  question  in  a  speech  deliv¬ 
ered  in  the  city  of  Hew  York,  in  1831,  and  read  from  that  speech  as 
follows  : 

“I  frankly  avow  my  entire  unwillingness  to  do  anything  which  shall  extend 
the  slavery  of  the  African  race  on  this  continent,  or  add  other  slaveholding  States 
to  the  Union.  When  I  say  that  I  regard  slavery  in  itself  as  a  great  moral,  social 
and  political  evil,  I  only  use  language  which  has  been  adopted  by  distinguished 
men,  themselves  citizens  of  slaveholding  States.” 

“I  have  nothing,  sir,”  he  said  “to  add  to  or  take  from  those  senti¬ 
ments.” 

j4nd  again,  in  his  compromise  speech,  he  declared : 

“Wherever  there  is  a  substantive  good  to  be  done,  wherever  there  is  a  foot  of 
land  to  be  prevented  from  becoming  slave  territory,  I  am  ready  to  assert  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  the  exclusion  of  slavery.” 

Respecting  the  morality  of  slavery,  Mr.  Clay  expressed  himself 
very  fully,  at  an  earlier  period  of  his  life.  In  the  first  volume  of  Mr. 
Colton’s  “Life  and  Times  of  Henry  Clay,”  published  in  1846,  the 
author,  referring  to  a  speech  delivered  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the 


5 


Colonization  Society,  at  Washington,  on  the  21st  of  January,  1827, 
says  : 

“The  following  extracts  from  this  speech  stand  out  in  strong  relief,  as  a 
demonstration  of  Mr.  Clay’s  feelings  as  a  man  on  the  slavery  question: 

“If  I  could  be  instrumental  in  eradicating  this  deepest  stain  ('slavery)  from 
the  character  of  our  country,  and  removing  all  cause  of  reproach  on  account 
of  it  by  foreign  nations ;  if  I  could  only  be  instrumental  in  ridding  of  this  foul 
blot  that  revered  State  that  gave  me  birth,  or  that  not  less  beloved  State  which 
kindly  adopted  me  as  her  son,  I  would  not  exchange  the  proud  satisfaction  which 
I  should  enjoy  for  the  honor  of  all  the  triumphs  ever  decreed  to  the  most  suc¬ 
cessful  conqueror.  ******** 

“We  are  reproached  with  doing  mischief  by  the  agitation  of  this  question 
('slavery).  Collateral  consequences  we  are  not  responsible  for.  It  is  not  this 
society  which  has  produced  the  great  moral  revolution  which  the  age  exhibits. 
What  would  they  who  reproach  us  have  done  ?  If  they  would  repress  all  tenden¬ 
cies  toward  liberty,  and  ultimate  emancipation,  they  must  do  more  than  put  down 
the  benevolent  efforts  of  this  society.  They  must  go  back  to  the  era  of  our  liberty 
and  independence,  and  muzzle  the  cannon  which  thunders  its  annual  joyous 
return.  They  must  revive  the  slave  trade  with  all  its  train  of  atrocities.  They 
must  blow  out  the  moral  lights  around  us,  and  extinguish  that  greatest  torch 
of  all,  which  America  presents  to  a  benighted  world,  pointing  the  way  to  their 
rights,  their  liberties  and  their  happiness.  And  when  they  have  achieved  all 
these  purposes,  their  work  will  yet  be  incomplete.  They  must  penetrate  the 
human  soul,  and  eradicate  the  light  of  reason  and  the  love  of  liberty.  Then,  and 
not  till  then,  when  universal  darkness  and  despair  prevail,  can  you  perpetuate 
slavery,  and  repress  all  sympathies  and  all  humane  and  benevolent  efforts  among 
freemen  in  behalf  of  the  unhappy  portion  of  our  race  doomed  to  bondage.” 

Gentlemen  of  Philadelphia — Whigs  of  Philadelphia — these  were  the 
sentiments  of  a  man  whom  you  honored  and  loved  till  the  day  of  his 
death.  I  knew  Mr.  Colton,  his  biographer,  very  well.  He  frequently 
called  to  see  me,  when  passing  through  Philadelphia,  and  I  knew  of 
his  visits  to  Ashland  while  engaged  in  the  preparation  of  his  work. 
It  was  a  labor  of  love,  as  well  as  a  faithful  history,  and  I  know  how 
careful  he  was  to  introduce  nothing  in  it  that  could  place  Mr.  Clay  in 
a  false  position,  or  give  a  false  coloring  to  his  views  on  any  question. 
The  work  was  published  by  the  sanction  and  consent  of  Mr.  Clay, 
several  years  before  his  death,  and  is  therefore  the  highest  authority 
on  all  subjects  of  which  it  treats.  Allow  me  to  ask  whether  you  re¬ 
spect  the  memory  of  Mr.  Clay  the  less,  for  the  utterance  of  such  senti¬ 
ments  respecting  an  institution  which,  southern  politicians  have  re¬ 
cently  discovered,  to  be  the  only  means  through  which  our  government 
can  be  administered,  without  violating  the  Constitution  ?  If  you  do, 
speak  out  like  men,  and  give  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  you  ! 
[Cheers.] 

Both  the  political  and  moral  sentiments  of  Mr.  Clay  on  the  question 
of  slavery  were  those  of  the  Whig  party  generally,  and  were  earnestly 
sustained  by  the  Whigs  of  Philadelphia.  Mr.  Lincoln,  born  of  humble 
parents  in  the  State  of  Kentucky,  and  removing  finally  to  the  State  of 
Illinois,  made  free  by  the  blessed  ordinance  1787,  naturally  imbibed 
the  same  sentiments.  He  has  always  maintained  them.  He  has 
alway  been  the  manly,  consistent,  and  able  advocate  of  the  principles 
of  the  Whigs,  to  which  I  have  briefly  referred,  and  there  he  stands,  on 


6 


a  platform  made  up  in  chief  of  those  very  principles — so  just,  so  con¬ 
servative,  so  precisely  fashioned  after  the  models  of  the  fathers,  that 
our  political  opponents  in  the  free  States  prudently  let  it  alone.  It 
expresses  or  implies  no  infidelity  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  It  looks  to  no  interference  by  Congress  with  the  domestic  in¬ 
stitutions  of  any  State  in  the  Union.  It  contemplates  no  measure  of 
injustice  or  unfairness  to  the  people  of  the  South  or  of  any  other  sec¬ 
tion  of  the  country.  Mr.  Lincoln  is  the  representative,  the  embodi¬ 
ment,  if  you  please,  of  the  resolutions  composing  that  platform. 
[Cheers.]  They  express  the  sentiments  which  he  has  always  enter¬ 
tained,  and  which  have  not  been  thrust  upon  him,  nor  has  he  assumed 
them  for  the  occasion.  He  has  never  uttered  a  word  of  disloyalty  to 
the  Constitution,  or  of  hostility  to  any  section  of  our  country.  He 
entertains  none.  Ho  honest  man  has  ever  charged  him  with  it.  And 
if  he  be  elected  to  the  Presidency,  an  event  which  is  very  likely  to 
happen,  the  spectre  of  disunion  which  frightens  so  many  of  our  citizens, 
will  “  vanish  into  thin  air”  before  the  quiet  majesty  of  the  law,  main¬ 
tained  and  administered  by  an  honest  and  fearless  man.  [Cheers.] 

Who  are  the  assailants  of  Mr.  Lincoln  ?  That  he  should  be  opposed 
by  the  regular  and  irregular  Democracy  is  not  surprising.  He  never 
sympathized  with  any  of  them,  and  none  of  them  ever  sympathized 
with  him,  on  any  question  at  issue  between  them  and  their  political 
opponents.  He  was  a  blooded  Whig,  and  the  blood  is  in  him  yet, 
warm  and  uncorrupted.  [Cheers.]  They  may,  and  probably  do,  op¬ 
pose  him  on  principle,  as  they  certainly  have  reason  to  do.  They  may 
even  denounce  him  as  a  black  Republican  and  an  abolitionist,  for  they 
have  always  dealt  in  epithets  and  falsehoods.  They  applied  them  to 
Mr.  Clay  and  the  Whigs.  They  called  him  a  black  abolitionist,  a 
blackleg,  a  traitor  to  the  South,  and  “  the  murderer  of  the  lamented 
Cilley  !”  [That’s  true.]  Because  Mr.  Giddings  and  Mr.  Seward  and 
Mr.  Adams  were  acting  with  the  Whigs,  and  because  Mr.  Webster,  in 
one  of  his  speeches  in  the  great  contest  of  1844,  called  upon  the  aboli¬ 
tionists  to  unite  with  the  Whigs  in  defeating  a  measure  which  both 
alike  condemned,  the  Whigs,  North  and  South,  were  denounced  as  an 
abolition  party,  with  hostile  designs  upon  the  domestic  institutions  of 
the  South.  We  were  called  the  black  Whigs,  the  lying  Whigs,  and 
the  tariff  of  1842,  was  the  black  tariff  all  over  the  south  ;  but  the  Polk, 
Dallas  and  Texas  tariff*  in  Pennsylvania.  Epithets  and  falsehoods,  and 
frauds  defeated  us  in  1844.  They  took  from  Mr.  Clay  the  States  of 
Pennsylvania,  Georgia  and  Louisiana,  and  placed  Mr.  Polk  in  the 
Presidential  chair.  I  am,  therefore,  not  surprised  that  the  same  party 
should  resort  to  the  same  tactics  again. 

The  gentleman  chosen  for  this  service  by  the  Breckinridge  wing  of 
Philadelphia,  has  assumed  the  task  under  somewhat  peculiar  circum¬ 
stances.  Some  of  you  may  remember  him  as  a  distinguished  leader  of 
the  anti-Masonic  party.  That  was  before  my  time.  I  knew  him  first 
as  a  Whig — and  he  held  office  as  a  Whig.  He  then  hob-nobbed  poli¬ 
tically  with  the  Americans  and  held  office  as  a  hob-nobber;  [laughter] 
and  in  1856,  he  took  his  final  leap  into  the  arms  of  the  Democracy. 


7 


Let  me  do  him  the  justice  to  say  that,  he  has  never  forgotten  his  self- 

*  respect  so  far  as  to  accept  an  office  that  would  degrade  an  American 
gentleman,  and  never  left  a  party  that  was  able  to  confer  one.  [Great 
laughter.]  What  he  has  been  and  what  he  is,  would  be,  under  some 
circumstances,  no  business  of  yours  or  mine.  But  he  challenges  in¬ 
quiry  on  that  point,  by  the  graceful  ease  with  which  he  consigns  to 
perdition  all  of  his  old  associates,  who  adhere  to  those  principles  re¬ 
specting  the  extension  of  slavery,  which  he  himself  professed  and 
taught,  until  he  found  a  favorable  chance  to  “do  better.”  [Laughter.] 
I  may,  therefore,  without  impropriety,  invite  your  attention  to  what 
he  has  said  and  done  on  that  question,  in  the  maturity  of  his  judg¬ 
ment,  and  show  you  how  proudly  he  has  presented  to  the  world  that 
ancestor  whose  name  he  delights  to  honor — in  the  very  mantle  that 
has  fallen  upon  the  abolitionists  of  the  present  day.  [Cheers  and 
laughter.  ] 

In  the  year  1847,  there  was  published  in  this  City  a  contribution  to 
American  history,  in  two  octavo  volumes,  entitled,  “  The  Life  and 
Correspondence  of  Joseph  Heed,”  edited  by  his  grandson,  Mr.  William 
B.  Heed.  In  the  second  volume  of  that  work,  the  author  introduces  a 
history  of  the  Act  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania  for  the 
gradual  abolition  of  slavery,  passed  in  the  year  1780.  Referring  to 
the  elforts  of  the  Quakers  to  abolish  slavery  in  this  State,  which  he 
alleges  “  were  singularly  inoperative  of  good,”  Mr.  Reed  says  : 

“  The  Revolution,  asserting  a  practical  equality  between  man  and  man,  effected 
much  more  ;  and  the  men  of  the  Revolution,  who  were  regarded  as  extreme  in 
their  democratic  tendencies,  had  the  honor  of  extinguishing  slavery  from  the 

*  soil.” 

r  ■, 

The  Vice-President,  Mr.  Bryan,  in  his  message  to  the  Assembly  on 
the  9th  of  November,  1778,  after  referring  to  the  heads  of  a  bill  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery  furnished  to  the  preceding  assembly,  says : 

“  This,  or  some  better  scheme,  would  tend  to  abrogate  slavery,  the  opprobrium 
of  America,  from  among  us.  *  *  *  In  divesting  the  State  of  slavery,  you 

will  equally  serve  the  cause  of  humanity  and  policy,  and  offer  to  God  one  of  the 
most  proper  and  best  returns  of  gratitude  for  His  great  deliverance  of  us  and  our 
posterity  from  thraldom  ;  you  will  also  set  your  character  for  justice  and  benevo- 

)  lence  in  the  true  point  of  view  to  all  Europe,  who  are  astonished  to  see  a  people 

struggling  for  liberty  holding  negroes  in  bondage.” 

But  Mr.  Reed,  after  a  fling  at  the  Quakers  for  their  inefficiency, 
claims  for  his  grandfather  the  honor  of  striking  the  most  efficient  blow 
for  liberty.  President  Reed  earnestly  called  the  attention  of  the  As¬ 
sembly  to  the  subject  early  in  1779,  by  a  message  in  the  following 
words  : 

“  We  would  again  bring  into  your  view  a  plan  for  the  gradual  abolition  of  sla¬ 
very,  so  disgraceful  to  any  people,  and  more  especially  to  those  who  have  been 
contending  in  the  great  cause  of  liberty  themselves,  and  upon  whom  Providence 
has  bestowed  such  eminent  marks  of  its  favor  and  protection.  We  think  we  are 
called  on  to  evince  our  gratitude  in  making  our  fellow  men  joint  heirs  with  us  of 
the  same  inestimable  blessings,  under  such  restrictions  and  regulations  as  will  not 
injure  the  community,  and  will  imperceptibly  enable  them  to  relish  and  improve 
the  station  to  which  they  will  be  advanced.  Honored  will  that  State  be  in  the 


-> 


8 


annals  of  history,  which  shall  first  abolish  this  violation  of  the  rights  of  mankind, 
and  the  memories  of  those  will  be  held  in  grateful  and  everlasting  remembrance, 
who  shall  pass  the  law  to  restore  and  establish  the  rights  of  human  nature  in 
Pennsylvania.  ’ 5 

“Again,”  says  the  author,  on  page  176,  “to  the  same  body  did  it  become 
necessary  for  the  Executive  to  speak,  and  we  find,  on  the  9th  of  September,  1779, 
President  Reed  urged  them  to  action.” 

‘  ‘  Our  anxiety  to  perpetuate  and  extend  the  blessings  of  freedom  and  enlarge 
the  circle  of  humanity,  induces  me  to  remind  you  of  the  bill  emancipating  the 
children  born  of  negro  and  mulatto  parents.  We  wish  to  see  you  give  the  com¬ 
plete  sanction  of  law  to  this  noble  and  generous  purpose,  and  adorn  the  annals 
of  Pennsylvania  with  their  bright  display  of  justice  and  public  virtue.” 

Now,  gentlemen,  mark  the  opinions  and  the  language  of  the  ances¬ 
tor:  that  “slavery  is  disgraceful  to  any  people,” — that  “our  fellow 
men”  (meaning  the  negro  slaves,)  should  “be  joint  heirs  with  us,  in 
the  inestimable  blessings  of  liberty;”  that  slavery  is  “a  violation  of 
the  rights  of  mankind;”  that  its  abolition  would  be  “a  bright  display 
of  justice  and  public  virtue.” 

Mr.  Reed  was  proud  to  say  all  this  of  his  ancestor  in  1847.  What 
does  he  think  of  him  now?  [Cheers  and  laughter.]  Mr.  Sumner 
could  hardly  say  more,  nor  the  “  crazy  Frenchman,”  Victor  Hugo,  nor 
Lord  Brougham,  nor  John  Brown,  nor  Wendell  Phillips,  nor  Gerrit 
Smith,  the  abolition  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  [Cheers.] 

On  page  179  of  the  same  volume,  Mr.  Reed  expresses  his  own 
opinion  of  the  abolition  sentiments  of  his  grandfather  and  others  who 
passed  the  Act  of  1780.  “Abolition  with  them,”  says  he,  “was  the 
application  of  high  principles  of  abstract  equality,  in  order  to  eradicate, 
without  violence  and  by  gradual  processes,  an  admitted  and  inveterate 
evil.  This  it  has  effected,  and  without  the  least  agitation.  Pennsyl¬ 
vania,  by  the  wisdom  of  her  revolutionary  men,  has  been  relieved 
from  the  deep  stain  on  her  character  and  burden  on  her  energies. 
Pennsylvania  was  first  in  the  great  work.” 

This  was  written  some  years  before  Mr.  Reed  went  to  China  and 
studied  diplomacy.  [Laughter.] 

What  did  he  mean  by  those  “  ominous  words” — “high  principles  of 
abstract  equality” — “an  admitted  and  inveterate  evil” — “the  deep 
stain  on  her  character” — “first  in  the  great  work  ?”  They  are  now  his¬ 
torical.  They  are  in  every  public  library.  They  are  indelibly  inscribed 
on  the  elaborate  monument  he  has  erected  to  the  memory  of  his  grand¬ 
father.  They  will  be  read  by  his  descendants,  and  future  generations, 
in  ignorance  of  his  fugitive  political  harangues,  will  give  him  a  niche 
between  President  Reed  and  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  unless  by  some 
ingenuity  he  can  blot  them  from  the  record.  [Cheers  and  laughter.] 

Allow  me  to  make  one  more  reference  to  the  book  already  cited.  In 
a  foot-note,  on  page  178,  he  says  : 

“  It  may  not  be  inopportune  to  call  public  attention  in  this  place,  to  another 
legislative  measure  of  kindred  interest,  the  resolution  of  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives  of  Pennsylvania,  of  the  22d  December,  1819,  on  the  Missouri 
question.  They  were  written  by  Wm.  J.  Duane,  then  a  representative  from 
Philadelphia.  They  breathe  in  eloquent  language  the  Pennsylvania  sentiment 
of  1780.” 


9 


Hearken  now,  my  fellow-citizens,  to  that  resolution,  which  passed 
both  Houses  without  a  dissenting  voice,  and  was  voted  for  by  David 
R  Porter,  Josiah  Randall,  William  Wilkins,  Daniel  Sturgeon,  and 
William  J.  Duane,  all  known  to  you  as  distinguished  citizens  of  our 
State  ;  and  which  Mr.  Reed  cordially  and  fully  endorses  in  his  history 
of  the  Act  of  1780. 

“  A  measure  was  ardently  supported  in  the  last  Congress  of  the  United  States, 
and  will  probably  be  as  earnestly  urged  during  the  existing  session  of  that  body, 
which  has  a  palpable  tendency  to  impair  the  political  relations  of  the  several 
States  ;  which  is  calculated  to  mar  the  social  happiness  of  the  present  and  future 
generations  ;  which,  if  adopted,  would  impede  the  march  of  humanity  and  free¬ 
dom  through  the  world  ;  and  would  transfer  from  a  misguided  ancestry  an  odious 
stain,  and  fix  it  indelibly  upon  the  present  race — a  measure,  in  brief,  which  pro¬ 
posed  to  spread  the  crimes  and  cruelties  of  slavery  from  the  banks  of  the  Missis¬ 
sippi  to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  When  a  measure  of  this  character  is  seriously 
advocated  in  the  Republican  Congress  of  America,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
several  States  are  invoked  by  the  duty  which  they  owe  to  the  Deity,  by  the  vene¬ 
ration  which  they  entertain  for  the  memory  of  the  founders  of  the  republic,  and 
by  a  tender  regard  for  posterity,  to  protest  against  its  adoption,  to  refuse  to  cove¬ 
nant  with  crime,  and  to  limit  the  range  of  an  evil  that  already  hangs  in  awful 
boding  over  so  large  a  portion  of  the  Union. 

********* 

“  If,  indeed,  the  measure  against  which  Pennsylvania  considers  it  her  duty  to 
raise  her  voice,  were  calculated  to  abridge  any  of  the  rights  guaranteed  to  the 
several  States  ;  if,  odious  as  slavery  is,  it  was  proposed  to  hasten  its  extinction 
by  means  injurious  to  the  States  upon  which  it  was  unhappily  entailed,  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  would  be  the  first  to  insist  upon  a  sacred  observance  of  the  constitutional 
compact.  But  it  cannot  be  pretended  that  the  rights  of  any  of  the  States  are  at 
all  to  be  affected  by  refusing  to  extend  the  mischiefs  of  human  bondage  over  the 
boundless  regions  of  the  West,  a  territory  which  formed  no  part  of  the  Union  at 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  ;  which  has  been  but  lately  purchased  from  a  Euro¬ 
pean  power  by  the  people  of  the  Union  at  large ;  which  may  or  may  not  be  admitted 
as  a  State  into  the  Union  at  the  discretion  of  Congress  ;  which  must  establish  a 
Republican  form  of  government,  and  no  other ;  and  whose  climate  affords  none  of 
the  pretexts  urged  for  resorting  to  the  labor  of  natives  of  the  torrid  zone; 
such  a  territory  has  no  right,  inherent  or  acquired,  such  as  those  States  possessed 
which  established  the  existing  Constitution.  When  that  Constitution  was  framed 
in  September,  1787,  the  concession  that  three-fifths  of  the  slaves  in  the  States 
then  existing  should  be  represented  in  Congress  could  not  have  been  intended  to 
embrace  regions  at  that  time  held  by  a  foreign  power.  On  the  contrary,  so  anx¬ 
ious  were  the  Congress  of  that  day  to  confine  human  bondage  within  its  ancient 
home,  that  on  the  13th  of  July,  1787,  that  body  unanimously  declared  that  slavery 
or  involuntary  servitude  should  not  exist  in  the  extensive  territories  bounded  by 
the  Ohio,  the  Mississippi,  Canada  and  the  lakes  ;  and  in  the  9th  article  of  the 
Constitution  itself,  the  power  of  Congress  to  prohibit  the  emigration  of  servile 
persons  after  1808,  is  expressly  recognized.  Nor  is  there  to  be  found  in  the 
statute  book,  a  single  instance  of  the  admission  of  a  territory  to  the  rank  of  a 
State,  in  which  Congress  has  not  adhered  to  the  right  vested  in  them  by  the  Con¬ 
stitution,  to  stipulate  with  the  territory  upon  the  conditions  of  the  boon. 

“The  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  Pennsylvania,  therefore,  cannot 
but  deprecate  any  departure  from  the  humane  and  enlightened  policy  pursued,  not 
only  by  the  illustrious  Congress  which  framed  the  Constitution,  but  by  their 
successors  without  exception.  They  are  persuaded  that  to  open  the  fertile  regions 
of  the  West  to  a  servile  race  would  tend  to  increase  their  numbers  beyond  all 
past  example,  would  open  a  new  and  steady  market  for  the  lawless  vendors  of 
human  flesh,  and  would  render  all  schemes  for  obliterating  this  most  foul  blot 
upon  the  American  character  useless  and  unavailing.  Under  these  convictions, 


10 


and  in  the  full  persuasion  that  upon  this  topic  there  is  but  one  feeling  in  Penn¬ 
sylvania, 

“  Resolved ,  By  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Commonwealth 
of  Pennsylvania,  That  the  Senators  of  this  State  in  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  be,  and  they  are  hereby  instructed,  and  that  the  Representatives  of  this 
State  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  be,  and  they  are  hereby  requested,  to 
vote  against  the  admission  of  any  territory  as  a  State  into  the  Union,  unless  said 
territory  shall  stipulate  and  agree  that  ‘  The  further  introduction  of  slavery  or 
involuntary  servitude,  except  for  the  punishment  of  crimes  whereof  the  party 
shall  have  been  duly  convicted,  shall  be  prohibited  ;  and  that  all  children  born 
within  the  said  territory,  after  its  admission  into  the  Union  as  a  State,  shall  be 
free,  but  may  be  held  to  service  until  the  age  of  twenty-five  years.’  ” 

This  was  the  spirit  of  It  80 — the  liberty -loving  spirit  of  the  fathers 
— as  full  of  vitality  in  1819,  as  when  it  was  first  born  in  the  midst  of 
the  Revolution.  On  the  floor  of  Congress  it  found  a  champion  from 
our  own  city,  who  sustained  it  with  surpassing  ability,  winning  laurels 
in  that  great  contest  which  will  crown  his  memory  to  the  latest  time. 

I  need  hardly  say  that  I  refer  to  the  late  John  Sergeant,  the  Nestor 
of  the  Whigs  of  Philadelphia,  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  and  statesmen 
that  this  country  has  ever  produced.  [Cheers.]  It  was  my  privilege 
to  know  him,  and  to  love  him,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  a  better  or  a 
purer  man  ever  lived.  He  went  to  his  grave  honored  and  beloved  by 
his  fellow-citizens  :  and  I  can  say  to  every  young  man  who  aims  at  an 
honorable  distinction  in  life,  and  a  spotless  fame  after  death,  that  he 
cannot  do  better  than  study  the  character  of  John  Sergeant,  and  strive 
to  imitate  his  example.  [Applause.]  In  his  great  speech  on  the 
Missouri  restriction,  you  will  find  his  opinions  on  the  extension  of 
slavery,  which  are  concurrent  in  all  respects  with  those  embodied  in 
the  resolutions  of  the  Chicago  convention,  and  maintained  by  Abraham 
Lincoln.  [Cheers.] 

The  Pennsylvania  sentiment  of  It 80  was  again  expressed  by  the 
Legislature  of  the  State  on  the  22d  of  January,  184?,  during  the  ad¬ 
ministration  of  Governor  Shunk,  in  the  following  words : 

‘  ‘  Whereas,  the  existing  war  with  Mexico  may  result  in  the  acquisition  of  new 
territory  to  the  Union. 

‘  ‘  And  whereas,  measures  are  now  pending  in  Congress  having  in  view  the 
appropriation  of  money  and  the  conferring  authority  on  the  treaty-making  power 
to  this  end.  Therefore, 

“  Resolved ,  By  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Commonwealth 
of  Pennsylvania,  in  General  Assembly  met,  That  our  Senators  and  Representa¬ 
tives  in  Congress  be  requested  to  vote  against  any  measure  whatever  by  which 
territory  will  accrue  to  the  Union,  unless,  as  a  part  of  the  fundamental  law  upon 
which  any  compact  or  treaty  for  this  purpose  is  based,  slavery  or  involuntary 
servitude,  except  for  crime,  shall  be  forever  prohibited.” 

This  resolution  passed  the  House  of  Representatives,  on  a  call  of 
the  yeas  and  nays,  unanimously.  Every  Democrat  and  every  Whig 
voted  for  it,  ninety- five  members  being  present.  I  was  then  (Speaker 
of  the  Senate,  and  very  well  remember  when  I  entered  the  Senate 
chamber  on  the  day  that  it  passed  that  body,  I  was  accosted  by  Mr. 
Senator  Bigler,  who  stated  that  he  had  just  received  a  letter  from  one 
of  his  political  friends  in  Washington,  urging  him  to  have  the  resolu¬ 
tion  sent  to  Congress  with  as  little  delay  as  possible,  and  he  asked  me 


11 


to  give  him  the  floor  early  in  the  day,  for  the  purpose  of  moving  to 
take  up  the  resolution.  I  acceded  to  his  request,  and  on  his  motion 
the  resolution  was  taken  up.  Not  a  syllable  was  uttered  against  it. 
But,  nevertheless,  Mr.  Bigler  made  a  speech  in  support  of  it,  in  which 
he  took  occasion  to  avow  his  most  cordial  approval  of  the  principle  it 
expressed,  declared  it  to  be  the  true  Pennsylvania  doctrine,  and  that 
he  desired  to  place  himself  on  the  record  in  support  of  it.  He  did  so 
— as  you  will  see  by  reference  to  the  Senate  journal  of  that  session. 
It  passed  the  Senate,  on  a  call  of  the  yeas  and  nays,  almost  unani¬ 
mously,  three  Senators  only  voting  against  it.  That  was  as  late  as 
1841 — the  same  year  that  Mr.  Beed  published  the  life  and  corres¬ 
pondence  of  his  grandfather. 

Mr.  Bigler  and  myself  voted  alike  on  that  resolution,  and  as  respects 
the  principle  that  it  involves,  I  stand  now,  and  ever  expect  to  stand, 
as  I  stood  then.  [Cheers.]  Mr.  Bigler’s  name  still  stands  on  the 
record — but  “  negrophobia”  has  turned  his  head,  and  the  man  has  been 
running  away  from  his  record  ever  since.  [Laughter.] 

During  the  administration  of  Governor  Johnston,  who,  as  Speaker 
of  the  Senate  succeeded  Governor  Shunk  in  1848,  and  was  elected 
Governor  by  the  people  in  the  same  year,  the  Pennsylvania  doctrine 
of  1780  was  ably  sustained.  Mr.  Beed  was  on  confidential  terms  with 
Governor  Johnston,  who  consulted  him  freely  on  all  important  ques¬ 
tions,  and  although  not  officially  connected  with  his  administration, 
was  generally  considered,  and  I  believe  was,  the  Governor’s  chief 
adviser — whether  his  advice  was  asked  for  or  not.  [Laughter.] 

In  his  message  of  January,  1849,  Governor  Johnston  used  the  fol¬ 
lowing  language  on  this  question  : 

“  This  fundamental  law  (the  Constitution}  recognizes  the  right  to  hold  slaves 
in  the  States  which  were  parties  to  the  compact,  hut  it  makes  no  further  acknow¬ 
ledgment.  It  hears  on  its  plain  and  expressive  page  no  agreement,  expressed  or 
implied,  for  the  further  extension  of  human  slavery.  That  this  national  wrong 
has  heen  extended  with  the  progress  of  population,  is  not  an  argument  in  favor 
of  its  justice,  its  constitutional  right,  or  of  the  salutary  effects  it  has  produced  in 
the  territories  where  it  has  heen  admitted.  Shall  it  be  still  further  extended  ? 

“  To  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  belongs  the  authority  to  settle  this  important 
question .  *  *  ******* 

‘  ‘  If  slavery  he  in  itself  an  infraction  of  human  rights — if  it  he  directly  opposed 
to  the  enlightened  spirit  of  our  free  institutions — if  it  destroy  the  equality  of 
power  in  the  general  government  hy  enlarging,  where  it  exists,  the  constitutional 
representation — if  it  possess  a  direct  or  indirect  influence  against  Northern  and 
Western  policy  and  interests,  hy  promoting  a  system  of  laws  destructive  of 
domestic  industry  and  vitally  affecting  free  labor — if  it  retard  the  national  growth 
of  population  and  improvement,  by  the  appropriation  of  large  tracts  of  land  for 
the  benefit  of  the  few  and  to  the  injury  of  the  many — if  it  he  in  open  defiance  of 
the  spirit  of  the  age,  the  march  of  national  truth  and  the  enlightened  policy  of 
mankind — it  is  time  to  arrest  its  further  progress.  These,  it  is  believed,  are  the 
settled  convictions  of  our  citizens,  and  their  determination  to  maintain  them  is  unal¬ 
terable. ” 

In  his  message  of  1850,  he  said  : 

“The  consent  of  the  free  States  of  the  Union  to  its  further  progress  would  evince 
an  ignorance  of  their  interests;  of  the  rights  of  justice  and  humanity;  and  an 
indifference  to  the  character  and  dignity  of  their  common  country.  Where  these 
are  implicated,  it  is  an  abandonment  of  duty  to  compromise.” 


12 


In  another  message  of  the  22d  of  March,  1850,  which  was  an  able 
vindication  of  the  Pennsylvania  doctrine  on  the  same  subject,  Gov¬ 
ernor  Johnston  referred  in  plain  terms  of  approval  to  the  Act  of  1847, 
which  prohibited  any  judge,  alderman  or  justice  of  the  peace  of  this 
Commonwealth  from  taking  cognizance  or  jurisdiction  of  the  case 
of  any  fugitive  from  labor,  under  a  severe  penalty,  denied  the  use  of 
our  prisons  for  the  detention  of  such  fugitives,  and  repealed  that  part 
of  the  Act  of  1780  which  authorized  the  masters  or  owners  of  slaves 
to  bring  and  retain  such  slaves  in  servitude  for  any  period  of  time 
within  this  Commonwealth. 

The  course  and  the  opinions  of  Gov.  Johnston  were  fully  endorsed 
and  approved,  not  only  by  Mr.  Reed,  but  also  by  Mr.  Joseph  R. 
Ingersoll,  at  a  Whig  meeting  held  in  the  Chinese  Museum,  on  the  3d 
of  June,  1850.  Mr.  Ingersoll  presided  at  that  meeting.  He  delivered 
a  glowing  eulogy  on  Gov.  Johnston  and  his  administration,  and 
among  the  resolutions  presented  by  Mr.  Reed,  and  approved  by  Mr. 
Ingersoll,  you  will  find  the  following  : 

“  Resolved,  That  as  Pennsylvanians,  citizens  of  a  State  whose  loyalty  to  the 
Union  and  Constitution  has  never  faltered,  even  when  under  the  forms  of  the 
Constitution  her  dearest  interests  have  been  sacrificed — which  has  always  yielded 
implicit  obedience  to  every  well  ascertained  obligation  of  the  Federal  compact, 
however  repulsive  to  mere  local  sentiment — we  thank  our  chief  magistrate  (Gov. 
Johnston)  for  his  assertion  of  Pennsylvania  faith  and  loyalty  and  steady  principle, 
in  his  message  of  the  22d  March,  1850,  a  State  paper,  in  its  spirit  and  manly 
patriotism  worthy  of  the  best  days  and  best  men  of  the  republic.” 

I  beg  leave  to  remind  Mr.  Ingersoll  and  Mr.  Reed  of  that  State 
paper,  which  elicited  such  high  praise  from  them  on  the  occasion  re¬ 
ferred  to,  and  went  the  full  length  of  the  old  Pennsylvania  doctrine.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  know  what  they  think  of  it  now.  [Laughter 
and  applause.] 

In  that  year  Mr.  Clay  introduced  into  the  Senate  a  series  of 
measures  known  as  the  compromise  measures,  intended  to  pacify  those 
southern  politicians  who  then  threatened  a  dissolution  of  the  Union, 
because  a  free  State,  formed  out  of  part  of  the  territory  acquired  from 
Mexico,  knocked  at  the  doors  of  Congress  for  admission  into  the  Union. 
It  was  the  third  great  compromise  which  liberty  was  called  upon  to 
make  with  slavery,  and  we  were  told  then  that  it  would  be  the  last, 
because  it  would  satisfy  the  South.  On  the  evening  of  the  3d  of  June, 
1850,  Mr.  Reed  stood  up  in  the  same  meeting  to  which  I  have  referred, 
(at  which  Mr.  Joseph  R.  Ingersoll  presided),  read  certain  resolutions 
besides  the  one  which  I  have  mentioned,  prepared  with  his  accustomed 
skill — and  made  a  speech.  The  meeting  did  not  understand  the  real 
object  of  either — for  it  would  have  been  indiscreet  in  Mr.  Reed  to 
avow  it.  But  there  was  one  fact  which  did  not  escape  notice. 
Although  the  eyes  of  the  country  were  then  directed  to  Mr.  Clay,  and 
his  efforts  to  preserve  the  Union,  which  was  threatened  as  well  by  the 
abolitionists  in  the  North  as  the  proslavery  fanatics  in  the  South — and 
although  the  Whigs  of  Philadelphia  had  never  assembled  on  any  former 
occasion  without  some  manifestation  of  affection  for  the  founder  and 


13 


chief  of  their  party,  whom  they  loved  better  than  any  other  living  man 
— yet  Mr.  Reed,  on  that  occasion,  when  it  was  difficult  to  discuss  his 
resolutions  without  a  direct  reference  to  Mr.  Clay’s  position  on  the 
question  of  the  admission  of  California,  did  not  make  the  slightest 
allusion  to  him.  The  meeting  heard  his  speech  and  adopted  his  reso¬ 
lutions,  but  there  was  a  prevailing  suspicion  that  a  cat  was  in  the  meal 
tub.  [Laughter.]  Pardon  me,  gentlemen,  for  mentioning  the  part 
which  I  acted  on  that  occasion  ;  it  is  a  necessary  part  of  its  history. 
I  was  present,  and  the  meeting  called  me  to  the  rostrum.  Knowing, 
as  I  did,  the  Whig  sentiment  of  Philadelphia,  I  embodied  it  in  a  single 
resolution,  which  I  presented  in  the  following  words  : 

“  Resolved,  That  while  we  tender  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  the 
assurances  of  our  unabated  confidence  in  his  devotion  to  the  welfare  of  the  people, 
we  cannot  withhold  a  public  expression  of  our  continued  regard  and  admiration 
for  Henry  Clay,  the  patriot  statesman,  whose  services  to  the  country  we  shall 
ever  hold  in  grateful  remembrance,  and  whose  recent  efforts  to  perpetuate  and 
strengthen  our  glorious  Union  have  rendered  his  name  and  his  fame  still  more 
dear  and  illustrious.  ’  ’  (Great  cheering. ) 

The  resolution  “  took  down  the  house.”  It  was  welcomed  by  cheer 
after  cheer,  and  Mr.  Reed  came  forth  to  define  his  position.  The 
meeting  was  turbulent — it  caught  the  idea  that  he  had  concealed  from 
them  the  real  meaning  of  his  resolutions,  and  he  tvas  hissed.  Order 
being  finally  restored,  he  made  a  clean  breast  of  it,  and  declared  that, 
if  the  resolution  was  intended  to  endorse  the  compromise  measures, 
he  was  opposed  to  it.  His  opposition  carried  no  weight  with  it — the 
resolution  was  adopted  almost  unanimously.  He  turned  to  me  and 
said — with  unusual  excitement — “  You  have  endorsed  the  compromise 
measures.”  So  I  did,  and  so  I  intended  (with  an  exception  which  I 
shall  notice,)  for  I  believed  they  would  satisfy  the  South,  and  end  the 
conflict  which  seemed  otherwise  “irrepressible.”  It  turns  out  that  I 
was  mistaken.  Mr.  Reed,  who  was  then  as  much  opposed  to  slavery 
as  his  grandfather,  was  opposed  to  the  concessions  which  those  mea¬ 
sures  made  to  the  South. 

Mr.  Reed  strenuously  advocated  the  re-election  of  Gov.  Johnston, 
in  1851  ;  and  I  hold  in  my  hand  a  printed  circular,  issued  on  the  6th 
October  of  that  year,  written  by  him,  attesting  at  once  his  undying 
attachment  to  Whig  principles,  and  his  relentless  hostility  to  the 
Democratic  party,  “  the  party  which,”  he  solemnly  assures  you  in  this 
paper,  “  makes  war  on  business  interests  whenever  it  suits  their  pur¬ 
poses.”  Allow  me  to  read  a  single  paragraph  from  Mr.  Reed’s  pen 
of  that  date  : 

“  Gov.  Johnston  is  to  be  defeated — such  is  the  calculation  of  his  enemies — by 
a  local  prejudice,  cunningly  excited  about  slavery.  For  this  there  is  no  foun¬ 
dation.  He  is  no  agitator.  He  stands  by  the  old  Pennsylvania  doctrine,  and  has, 
in  no  public  act,  gone  as  far  as  in  former  days  John  Sergeant,  and  Horace  Binney, 
and  Samuel  Breck,  and  Thos.  P.  Cope,  and  William  J.  Duane  went ;  and  their 
acts  and  manly  opinions  did  no  harm  to  Philadelphia.  They  made  her  respected.” 
(Cheers  and  laughter.^ 

In  a  letter  addressed  to  Hon.  A.  G.  Curtin,  dated  Philadelphia,  July 
26,  1855,  resigning  his  position  as  a  member  of  the  Whig  State  Com- 


14 


mittee,  and  published  in  the  North  American  of  August  10th,  1855, 
Mr.  Reed  laid  down  his  own  platform,  in  seven  brief,  comprehensive 
articles.  Referring  to  what  had  taken  place  in  the  Committee,  on  the 
subject  of  Know-Nothingism,  he  says  : 

“  To  the  proposition  to  call  a  Whig  Convention,  I  cheerfully  assented,  meaning, 
as  soon  as  the  call  was  determined  on,  to  ask  the  Committee,  by  a  manly  decla¬ 
ration  of  principle,  to  free  that  Convention,  on  its  inception,  from  the  suspicion 
which,  since  this  secret  party  has  existed,  has  hung  round  every  political  body 
that  has  met.  I  therefore  offered  and  asked  the  Committee  to  adopt  the  following 
brief  but  comprehensive  resolutions,  every  word  of  which  had  been  well  con¬ 
sidered,  and  for  every  word  of  which  I  am  willing  to  be  responsible  : 

11  Resolved,  By  the  Whig  Executive  Committee  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania, 
that  an  address  be  issued  by  this  Committee,  calling  a  Convention  to  meet  at 
Harrisburg  on - ,  asserting  the  following  principles  of  action  : 

[The  1st,  2d  and  3d  relate  exclusively  to  secret  political  associations, 
and  are  condemnatory  of  them.  ] 

“  4.  The  assertion  of  the  feeling  common  to  every  Whig  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
to  very  many  of  other  organizations,  that  the  Nebraska  and  Kansas  measures  of 
the  last  Congress,  the  abrogation  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line,  and,  as  part  of 
the  same  system,  the  lawless  and  violent  conduct  of  individuals  since  in  Kansas, 
especially  are  abhorrent  to  the  people  of  the  North,  and  ought  to  be  redressed. 

“5.  That  those  measures  were  a  wanton  renewal  of  sectional  agitation,  for 
which,  in  no  sense,  are  the  Whigs  of  the  North,  and  especially  the  Whigs  of 
Pennsylvania,  responsible. 

“  6.  That  the  restoration  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line  ought  to  be  demanded 
and  insisted  on  as  a  matter  of  right. 

“  I  shall  look  with  deep  interest  to  the  constitution  and  action  of  the  Convention 
which  is  summoned  to  meet  at  Harrisburg  in  September.  I  trust  its  action  may  be 
unreserved  in  the  enunciation  of  principle — conciliatory  to  those  who  agree  in 
principle — and  Republican  in  every  sense,  and  most  so  in  this,  that  no  whisper 
shall  be  uttered,  no  intimations  given,  that  can  be  construed  into  an  interference 
with  religious  liberty  which  the  Constitution  guards,  or  with  social  or  political 
rights  which  the  Constitution  recognizes.” 

Gentlemen,  Mr.  Reed’s  record  on  this  question  is  not  a  brief  one. 
It  began  before  he  was  born.  [Laughter.]  But  I  shall  soon  be  done 
with  it.  On  the  24th  of  September,  1856,  he  delivered  a  speech  at  a 
Buchanan  meeting  held  in  the  town  of  Somerset,  in  this  State.  It 
was  printed  in  pamphlet  form,  before  delivery,  and  was  afterwards 
circulated  in  that  form  very  extensively.  I  am  the  fortunate  owner  of 
a  copy,  which  I  hold  in  my  hand.  It  is  entitled,  “  The  Appeal  to 
Pennsylvania — a  Speech,  by  Wm.  B.  Reed.”  Not  an  appeal,  but  the 
appeal.  He  put  it  forth  as  the  one  great  speech  of  the  campaign, 
that  eclipsed  every  other  speech,  and  was  to  make  his  calling  and 
election  sure  in  the  event  of  Mr.  Buchanan’s  success.  [Laughter  and 
applause.]  From  this  speech,  on  the  very  last  page,  I  now  read  a 
brief  autobiographical  sketch  : 

“  1  am  a  Philadelphia  man,  born  and  bred  in  the  metropolis  of  my  State,  which 
has  honored  me  and  confided  in  me.  I  have  a  loyal  Pennsylvania  heart  throbbing 
within  me,  for  all  the  fame  and  all  the  honor  that  belong  to  me  and  mine  were 
won  in  Pennsylvania.  Among  the  honors  which  Pennsylvania  wears  is  her  Act  of 
1780,  providing  for  the  gradual  abolition  of  slavery  within  her  limits.  To  that 
act,  as  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  this  Commonwealth,  is  affixed  the  name  of  one  who 


15 


was  near  and  dear  to  me  (my  grandfather),  and  to  the  great  principle  of  that  act 
I,  and  every  true  Pennsylvanian,  steadfastly  adhere,  because  it  contains  no  word 
of  wrong  to  others,  hut  all  of  duty  to  ourselves.  It  is  to  the  principles  of  that 
act  to  which  Mr.  Buchanan  adhered  when,  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  in 
1836,  he  said  his  principles  as  to  slavery  were  those  of  Pennsylvania.” 

Thus  Mr.  Reed  defined  his  position  on  the  24th  September,  1856. 
What  the  great  principle  of  the  Act  of  1780  was,  and  is,  I  think  has 
been  made  clear.  This  completes  the  first  volume  of  the  record — the 
last  honor  to  the  memory  of  the  ancestor. 

Mr.  Buchanan  thought  the  speech  of  1856  worth  a  mission  to  China. 
[Laughter.]  I  believe  the  question  of  its  value  gave  rise  to  some 
discussion  in  the  Cabinet.  Had  Mr.  Reed  thrown  his  grandfather 
and  the  Act  of  1780  overboard,  I  mean  in  the  Somerset  speech,  he 
would  have  fared  better.  [Laughter.]  Judge  Black  was  obliged  to 
compromise  on  the  Chinese  mission,  and  Mr.  Reed  promised  himself 
to  “  do  better”  the  next  time. 

Now,  we  have  his  speech  against  Mr.  Lincoln,  against  all  the  free 
States — against  all  the  citizens  of  the  free  States  whom  Mr.  Reed  met 
abroad  during  what  he  calls  his  long  exile — against  the  Pennsylvania 
sentiment  of  1780 — against  those  acts  and  manly  opinions  of  John 
Sergeant  and  Horace  Binney,  and  Samuel  Breck  and  Thomas  P.  Cope, 
and  William  J.  Duane,  that  made  Philadelphia  respected — and  even 
against  the  ancestor  who  was  so  near  and  dear  to  the  loving  and  am¬ 
bitious  descendant.  And  all  for  what  ?  Hear  him,  and  you  can  judge. 
I  read  from  the  last  paragraph  of  the  speech  : 

‘  ‘  Mine  are  the  first  words  from  Pennsylvanian  lips  that  have  been  spoken  for 
John  C.  Breckenridge.  They  have  not  been  inconsiderately  uttered.  They  are 
probably  my  last ;  for  I  must  leave  to  others  the  active  conduct  of  this  campaign, 
willing  to  be  a  private  soldier  in  the  ranks.  I  shall  have  my  full  reward  if  what 
I  have  uttered  to-night  shall  not  be  in  vain.” 

[Shouts  of  laughter.] 

I  perceive  you  understand  him  ! 

Now  it  so  happens  that  Mr.  Reed’s  were  not  the  first  words  from 
Pennsylvania  lips  that  were  spoken  for  J ohn  C.  Breckenridge.  The 
very  association  that  he  addressed  had  been  organized  long  before. 
Mr.  Benjamin  Rush  had  spoken  before  in  favor  of  Mr.  Breckenridge 
consistently,  and  I  have  no  doubt,  decently  and  eloquently.  I  say 
consistently,  because  Mr.  Rush  has  always  been  a  Democrat.  Mr. 
Reed  knew  all  that  very  well,  but  he  takes  the  honors  as  innocently 
as  if  they  belonged  to  him,  and  puts  the  crown  upon  his  own  head  like 
another  Napoleon.  If  Mr.  Breckenridge  should  happen  to  be  Presi¬ 
dent,  whose  lips  will  be  so  sweet  as  Mr.  Reed’s  ?  Whose  counsel 
will  be  sought  in  Pennsylvania  but  Mr.  Reed’s  ?  The  speech  will  not 
have  been  in  vain.  He  will  have  his  full  reward. 

[Cheers  and  laughter.] 

But  he  makes  provision  for  another  contingency.  I  read  now  from 
the  first  page  of  his  speech  : 

“  Towards  these  gentlemen  (leaders  of  the  Bell  and  Everett  party,)  and  their 
principles  so  far  as  they  have  been  made  known,  we  all  have  a  respectful  feeling, 


16 


which  I  should  be  sorry  to  have  checked  by  foolish  letters,  or  foolish  speeches, 
imputing  sectionalism  to  Mr.  Breckenridge.  ('Admonitory  rather. ) 

4‘  I  believe  the  national  sentiment  of  the  country  will  yet  awaken  to  the 
necessity  of  combined  and  effective  action ;  how,  or  by  what  means,  I  no  not 
pretend  to  say.  It  may  be  at  the  last  moment ;  (look  out  for  the  rocks ! )  it  may  be 
on  the  very  edge  of  the  final  contest.  No  one  ought  to  say  a  word  to  render  it 
impossible.  No  one  ought  to  be  restless  and  fidgetty  in  promoting  it.  If  it  does 
happen,  depend  on  it,  a  great  element  of  its  successful  action,  will  be  the  organized 
Democracy  of  Pennsylvania,  the  friends  in  every  county  of  Breckenridge  and  Lane. 
Its  integrity  must  be  respected,  It  will  be  time  enough  when,  by  the  spontaneous 
co-operation  of  patriotic  men  through  the  commonwealth,  Mr.  Foster  shall  be 
elected  Governor,  as  he  easily  can  be.” 

These  few  words  pretty  clearly  foreshadowed  a  bargain  and  sale. 
And  the  other  night — when  the  honest  friends  of  Mr.  Bell  were  asleep, 
suspecting  no  wrong  to  themselves,  and  no  disgrace  to  their  cause — a 
few  scurvy  leaders,  on  the  alert  for  whatever  was  to  turn  up,  caught 
the  dulcet  notes  from  the  Breckenridge  nursery — 

“Bali!  mammy  black  sheep 
Have  you  any  wool?” 

[Roars  of  laughter.] 

There  was  a  moment’s  pause,  and  then  a  response  : 

“  Yes,  we  have,  masters, 

Three  bags  full !  ’  * 

[Great  laughter.] 

And  the  terms  were  settled  and  the  bargain  sealed  !  When  day¬ 
light  came,  the  scurvy  Bell  wethers  leaped  the  ditch,  expecting  the 
whole  flock  to  follow  and  be  sheared  and  left  to  the  winter’s  cold, 
while  they  took  all  the  turnips  to  themselves  !  [Laughter.]  The 
arrangement  of  this  practical  little  duet  required  the  experience  of  a 
diplomat,  who  knew  how  to  make  treaties  with  the  people  who  speak 
a  language  unintelligible  outside  of  the  wall,  and  express  their  emo¬ 
tions  through  gongs  and  bells.  [Laughter.] 

The  Chinese  party  is  now  fairly  in  the  field,  and  rallies  to  the  sup¬ 
port  of  Mr.  Foster.  [Tumultuous  applause  and  laughter.]  Permit 
me,  however,  to  express  the  opinion,  that  those  Whigs  of  Philadelphia 
who  have  espoused  the  cause  of  Mr.  Bell  as  the  exponent  of  their 
principles,  expecting  to  support  him  in  good  faith,  without  corrupt 
combinations  with  other  parties  whose  doctrines  and  practices  they 
have  never  approved,  will  hesitate  long  before  they  leap  the  ditch, 
which,  when  once  crossed,  will  separate  them  forever  from  the  faith 
they  have  always  professed. 

This  little  matter  disposed  of,  Mr.  Reed  draws  his  weapon,  and 
orders  himself  to  charge  upon  “the  common  enemy” — Lincoln,  and 
“the  compact,  fanatical  North.” 

He  admits  what  no  man  can  deny — that  Mr.  Lincoln  conducted 
his  discussion  with  Mr.  Douglas  with  frankness  and  ability.  His 
speeches  were  all  published,  and  if  they  contained  a  solitary  word  of 
disloyalty  to  the  Constitution,  it  would  not  have  escaped  the  research 
of  his  assailant.  If,  at  any  period  of  his  life,  he  had  ever  uttered  such 
a  word,  it  would  have  been  moused  out,  and  exhibited,  and  harped 


17 


upon,  and  magnified  like  the  “higher  law”  and  “irrepressible  conflict” 
of  Mr.  Seward.  But  something  has  been  discovered  that  looks  om¬ 
inous,  ambiguous,  and  ugly,  and  it  is  thus  announced  : 

“  Little  more  than  a  year  ago  he  wrote  a  letter,  in  which  he  was  betrayed  into 
language  which,  though  not  very  precise,  and  a  little  ambiguous,  was  ominous. 
It  was  this : 

‘ 1  1  This  is  a  world  of  compensations  and  he  who  would  be  no  slave  must  consent 
to  have  no  slave.  Those  who  deny  freedom  to  others  deserve  it  not  for  them¬ 
selves,  and,  under  a  just  God,  cannot  long  retain  it.’ 

“It  is  not  easy  to  say  what  this  means,  but  it  has  an  ugly  look.  Since  his 
nomination  Mr.  Lincoln  has  spoken  once,  and  once  too  often.  I  refer  to  his  speech 
at  Springfield,  about  four  weeks  ago,  which  was  the  more  significant,  as  he  appears 
to  have  been  taken  by  surprise,  and  to  have  spoken  out,  under  an  impulse,  his 
inner  thoughts.  There  is,  I  believe,  a  religious  sect  called  ‘  Progressive  Friends ,  ’ 
so,  in  politics,  there  are  progressive  Republicans,  and  to  this  class,  it  would  seem, 
Mr.  Lincoln  belongs.  I  infer  this  from  his  speech,  which  either  means  this  or 
means  nothing.  His  language  was  : 

“  ‘  My  friends,  you  will  fight  for  this  cause,  four  years  hence,  as  you  now  fight 
for  it,  and  even  stronger  than  you  now  fight  for  it,  though  I  may  be  dead  and 
gone.’  ” 

Xow  as  to  that  sentiment  which  Mr.  Beed  says  “has  an  ugly  look.” 
It  is  a  moral  sentiment.  If  Mr.  Lincoln  ever  read  the  Life  and  Times 
of  Joseph  Reed,  he  found  it  there.  [Applause.]  If  he  was  familiar 
with  the  Pennsylvania  sentiment  of  1780,  and  the  resolutions  of  1819, 
and  the  messages  of  Governor  Johnston,  and  the  speeches,  addresses 
and  resolutions  of  Mr.  Reed,  at  various  periods  of  his  life — he  saw  it 
as  a  bright  thread  running  through  the  whole  of  them.  [Cheers.]  If 
he  ever  read  the  speeches  of  Henry  Clay  and  Daniel  Webster,  he  found 
it  in  them,  a  glittering,  moral  truth.  It  shines  as  a  beacon  for  all  man¬ 
kind  in  the  sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  is  written  over  the  gates  of 
salvation.  [Applause.]  If  Mr.  Reed  had  lived  in  the  days  of  Tibe¬ 
rius  Caesar,  and  had  heard  the  admonition  from  the  Son  of  God,  “What¬ 
soever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them, 
for  such  is  the  law  and  the  prophets,”  would  he  have  said  “  it  has  an 
ugly  look  !”  Would  he  have  said,  “  this  is  higher  law  doctrine — crucify 
him?”  I  do  not  know  what  he  would  have  said,  or  what  he  would 
have  done,  to  win  a  smile  from  imperial  Caesar. 

[Tumultuous  applause.] 

The  cause  which  Mr.  Lincoln  represents,  and  which  he  supposed 
his  friends  would  fight  for,  four  years  hence,  “  and  even  stronger  than 
they  now  fight  for  it” — is  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  cause  of 
the  Constitution  and  the  Union.  Our  country — our  whole  country. 
[Cheers.]  It  is  threatened  by  Mr.  Reed’s  political  friends  in  the 
South,  that  the  further  advance  of  liberty  towards  the  free  territories 
of  the  country  will  be  forever  resisted,  even  to  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union.  And  in  reply  to  that  threat  we  have  only  to  say  that,  we  are 
on  the  side  of  the  Constitution  as  it  was  framed  and  construed  by  the 
fathers,  that  our  cause  is  just  in  the  sight  of  heaven,  and  remembering 
that  the  price  of  liberty  is  eternal  vigilance,  we  mean  to  watch  it,  and 
fight  for  it,  and  maintain  it,  and,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  we  will  hand 
it  down  to  our  children,  to  be  watched,  fought  for,  and  maintained  by 

2 


18 


them,  and  to  be  transmitted  by  them  to  be  watched,  fought  for,  and 
maintained  by  their  posterity  forever. 

The  Union  and  the  Constitution  of  these  States,  and  all  the  rights 
of  all  the  people  of  these  States,  if  not  inconsistent  with  that  “  higher 
law,’7  the  will  of  Almighty  God,  shall  be  perpetuated — if  our  efforts 
can  accomplish  it — to  the  latest  time.  [Great  applause.] 

Gentlemen,  I  have  no  respect,  not  a  particle,  for  that  unmanly  spirit 
that  attempts  to  magnify  the  few  words  uttered  by  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the 
occasion  referred  to — while  modestly  declining  the  vociferous  demand 
made  upon  him  for  a  speech,  by  an  enthusiastic  multitude  of  twenty 
thousand  men — into  a  contemplated  offence  against  a  country  that  he 
loves  with  a  sincerity  and  warmth  unknown  to  the  heart  of  his  assail¬ 
ant.  [Applause.] 

Mr.  Reed  treats  the  matter  as  if  he  were  prosecuting  a  case  of  man¬ 
slaughter  in  the  Quarter  Sessions  !  Hear  him  : 

“Such  was  the  utterance — no  doubt  the  unguarded  and  genuine  utterance 
— in  the  West,  at  Springfield,  Mr.  Lincoln’s  home,  on  the  ninth  of  last  month, 
August.  This  was,  if  I  mistake  not,  on  the  Thursday  of  one  week,  on  which  day, 
or  thereabouts,  Mr.  Seward  sets  out  to  look  after  Judge  Douglas,  in  New  England, 
and  arrived  at  Boston,  on  Monday,  the  13th,  and  then  and  there,  as  I  have  said, 
close  to  Edward  Everett’s  home,  as  if  in  insult  and  defiance,  he  reproduces  his 
doctrine  of  ‘irrepressible  conflict,’  ‘  ipsissimis  verbis, ’  and  adds  with  emphasis — 
speaking  I  fear  by  authority — (1  quote  his  very  words, )  ‘  Abraham  Lincoln  con¬ 
fesses  his  obligation  to  the  higher  law,  which  the  sage  of  Quincy  proclaimed,  and 
avows  himself,  for  weal  or  for  woe,  life  or  death,  a  soldier  on  the  side  of  freedom, 
in  the  irrepressible  conflict  between  freedom  and  slavery.”  ’ 

How  horrible !  Oh,  Mr.  Seward !  Mr.  Seward !  what  have  you 
done!  How  could  you  say  such  a  thing,  on  Monday,  the  13th  of 
August,  close  to  Edward  Everett’s  home — on  the  Thursday  after  you 
set  out  in  pursuit  of  Judge  Douglas,  who  was  looking  for  his  mother 
— on  the  very  Thursday  that  Mr.  Lincoln  told  the  people  at  Spring- 
field  that  he  thought  they  would  fight  for  the  cause,  even  harder  after 
he  was  dead  and  gone !  Mr.  Seward — “  it  is  flat  burglary  as  ever 
was !”  [Great  laughter.] 

Mr.  Seward  seems  to  take  some  pleasure  in  stirring  up  the  indigna¬ 
tion  of  a  certain  class  of  politicians,  by  a  repetition  of  those  cabalistic 
words — “irrepressible  conflict” — and  “higher  law.”  I  once  knew  a 
very  clever  man  who  always  carried  a  red  silk  handkerchief.  He  hap¬ 
pened  one  day  to  be  crossing  a  field  where  some  cattle  were  grazing, 
and  having  occasion  to  use  his  handkerchief  took  it  from  his  pocket. 
A  bull,  not  far  off,  caught  sight  of  it  as  it  fluttered  in  the  wind,  and 
immediately  made  a  dash  at  the  possessor,  who  narrowly  escaped 
severe  punishment.  Whenever  my  friend  had  occasion  to  cross  that 
field  afterwards,  he  would  shake  his  red  handkerchief  at  the  bull,  and 
he  would  invariably  make  a  mad  charge  upon  the  enemy.  I  asked 
him  one  day,  “Why  do  you  expose  yourself  to  such  danger  ?”  “  Well,” 
said  he,  “it  amuses  me  to  see  the  bull  get  mad  at  such  a  thing — and  I 
want  to  try  if  I  can’t  cure  him  of  it.”  [Roars  of  laughter.]  Mr. 
Seward  seems  to  have  a  propensity  for  the  same  kind  of  sport.  If  he 
happens  to  see  a  democrat  in  repose,  he  has  only  to  say  “  irrepressible 


19 


conflict”  or  “higher  law,”  to  start  him  to  his  legs  and  throw  him  into 
an  agony  of  passion.  [Shouts  of  laughter.] 

Gentlemen,  this  “irrepressible  conflict”  theory,  did  not  originate 
with  Mr.  Seward.  It  came  directly  from  John  C.  Calhoun — not 
ipsissimis  verbis,  it  is  true — but  substantially,  and  in  fact.  You  will 
find  it  by  reading  the  debate  on  his  famous  resolutions  of  1838,  the 
third  of  which  declared  that 

“This  government  is  bound  so  to  exercise  its  powers  as  to  give,  as  far  as  may 
be  practicable,  increased  stability  and  security  to  the  domestic  institutions  of  the 
States  that  compose  the  Union  ;  and  that  it  is  the  solemn  duty  of  the  government 
to  resist  all  attempts  by  one  portion  of  the  Union  to  use  it  as  an  instrument  to 
attack  the  domestic  institutions  of  another,  or  to  weaken  or  destroy  such  insti¬ 
tutions,  instead  of  strengthening  and  upholding  them,  as  it  is  in  duty  bound 
to  do.” 

This  attempt  to  obtain  from  the  free  States  the  concession  and  de¬ 
claration  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Federal  government  to  give  increased 
stability  and  security  to  the  institution  of  slavery,  and  to  strengthen 
and  uphold  it,  met  with  such  general  opposition  from  Senators  North 
and  South,  that  Mr.  Calhoun  saw  the  struggle  was  then  hopeless. 
But  he  never  abandoned  it.  He  always  considered  that  it  was  the 
true  policy  of  the  South  to  insist  upon  it,  and  demand  it,  as  the  only 
principle  on  which  the  Union  could  be  preserved.  In  1841,  lie  wrote 
a  letter  to  a  member  of  the  Alabama  Legislature,  in  which  he  declared 
that  he  was  from  the  beginning  in  favor  of  “  forcing”  the  slavery  issue 
on  the  North.  He  considered  delay  dangerous,  and  the  South  morally 
and  politically  stronger  than  she  ever  would  be  again.  And  no  man 
in  his  senses  can  deny  the  historical  fact,  that  this  conflict  has  been 
going  on  ever  since  the  Constitution  was  adopted.  Manifestoes  of 
State  conventions,  resolutions  of  town  meetings,  pledges  of  political 
parties,  and  legislative  measures  of  compromise,  all  intended  to  put  an 
end  to  it,  lie  scattered  and  trampled  upon  all  over  the  whole  length  of 
years  that  have  passed  since  the  Union  was  formed,  and  the  conflict 
still  rages,  worse  now  than  ever  before.  The  only  possible  way  to 
check  the  conflict  is  to  stop  the  further  extension  of  the  system. 
[Cheers.]  When  that  is  declared  to  be  the  settled  policy  of  the  govern¬ 
ment,  we  shall  have  no  more  excitement  or  agitation  respecting  it. 
Mr.  Seward  has  happily  expressed  Mr.  Calhoun’s  theory  in  the  few 
words  which  he  now  uses  as  a  handkerchief  to  excite  the  bull.  [Laugh¬ 
ter  and  applause.] 

The  doctrine  of  “  the  higher  law”  was  also  accepted  and  avowed  by 
Mr.  Calhoun.  Mr.  Clay  once  referred  to  him  in  the  Senate  as  a  par¬ 
tisan  of  Mr.  Van  Buren’s  administration.  Mr.  Calhoun  repelled  the 
charge,  and  denied  that  he  was  the  partisan  of  any  man  or  any  admin¬ 
istration.  “It  was,”  he  said,  “  his  fortune  to  stand  in  the  Senate  alone, 
with  no  other  guide  but  God  and  his  conscience.”  In  his  memorable 
reply  to  Mr.  Clay  in  1838,  on  the  Independent  Treasury  bill,  he  said  : 

“In  a  conversation  with  a  friend  about  the  responsibility  I  would  assume,  he 
remarked,  that  my  own  State  might  desert  me.  I  replied,  that  it  was  not  impro¬ 
bable  ;  but  the  result  has  proved  that  I  under-estimated  the  intelligence  and 


) 


20 


patriotism  of  my  noble  and  virtuous  State.  I  ask  her  pardon  for  the  distrust 
implied  in  my  answer ;  but  I  ask  with  the  assurance  that  it  will  be  granted  on  the 
grounds  that  1  shall  put  it — that  in  being  prepared  to  sacrifice  her  confidence,  as 
dear  to  me  as  light  and  life,  rather  than  disobey  on  this  great  question  the  dictates 
of  my  judgment  and  conscience ,  I  proved  myself  worthy  of  being  her  representa¬ 
tive  ” 

When  that  distinguished  man  said  that  he  stood  in  the  Senate  alone, 
“  with  no  guide ,  but  God  and  his  conscience ,”  and  that  he  was  ready 
to  sacrifice  the  confidence  of  his  State,  as  dear  to  him  as  light  and  life, 
rather  than  disobey  the  dictates  of  his  judgment  and  conscience ,  he 
distinctly  recognized  the  existence  of  a  “  higher  law”  than  the  Consti¬ 
tution  of  the  United  States,  to  which  he  was  subject.  I  have  always 
supposed  that  all  civilized  nations  admitted  the  will  of  God  to  be  a 
higher  law  than  ever  can  be  made  by  human  agency.  History  fur¬ 
nishes  us  with  a  solitary  exception,  and  that  was  of  brief  duration. 
The  fiendish  spirits  of  the  French  Revolution  impiously  denied  the 
Divine  authority  in  the  affairs  of  men,  and  for  a  time,  the  world  beheld 
an  entire  people  openly  and  defiantly  renouncing  their  responsibility 
to  God,  and  the  representatives  of  a  great  nation,  doing  public  homage 
to  the  Goddess  of  Reason,  in  the  person  of  a  wretched  prostitute. 
[Great  applause.] 

“  The  higher  law”  explicitly  asserts  the  authority  of  civil  govern¬ 
ment,  and  enjoins  obedience  to  it.  It  commands,  amongst  other  things, 
“  Submit  yourselves  to  every  ordinance  of  man,  for  the  Lord’s  sake.” 
He  who  is  under  the  influence  of  the  “  higher  law”  is  therefore  in  sub¬ 
mission  to  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  his  country,  and  cannot  fail  to 
be  a  good  citizen.  Those  only  who  deny  or  disregard  the  authority  of 
such  a  law  are  depredators  upon  society,  or  disturbers  of  the  public 
peace.  [Cheers.]  And  nowhere,  in  no  section  of  the  country,  do  you 
find  them  so  numerous  as  among  the  new  political  friends  of  Mr.  Reed 
in  the  Southern  States,  who  are  threatening  us  with  a  dissolution  of 
the  Union  for  performing  our  duty  to  the  country,  by  electing  the  man 
of  our  choice  to  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States.  But  Mr.  Reed 
does  not  rebuke  those  treasonable  threats.  On  the  contrary,  he  en¬ 
courages  them  by  the  expression  of  an  opinion  that  Mr.  Lincoln’s 
election  is  full  of  threatened  evil  to  the  Union,  and  he  can  find  no 
other  ground  for  it  than  the  “  sad  conviction”  that  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his 
friends  will  not  adopt  the  theory  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  that  this  government 
is  bound  to  legislate  for  the  protection  of  slavery  in  free  territories. 
[Cheers.] 

That  Mr.  Lincoln  will  maintain  the  Pennsylvania  doctrine  of  1180, 
on  the  subject  of  slavery  extension,  I  have  no  earthly  doubt.  That  he 
will  be  influenced  in  the  administration  of  the  government  by  fanatical 
men,  who  set  the  laws  of  their  country  at  defiance,  either  in  the  North 
or  the  South,  no  man  has  any  reason  to  believe.  The  effort  to  hold 
him  responsible  for  the  speeches  and  sentiments  of  Mr.  Seward,  Mr. 
Sumner,  Wendell  Phillips,  and  Victor  Hugo  and  Lord  Brougham,  is 
the  artful  policy  that  was  resorted  to  by  the  Democratic  party  in  1844 
to  exclude  Mr.  Clay  from  the  Presidential  chair,  to  which  I  have 
already  referred,  and  which  was  only  too  successful.  The  Whigs  of 


21 


Philadelphia  at  that  time  had  sense  enough  to  see  through  it ;  they 
had  no  sympathy  whatever  with  the  abolitionists,  and  they  clung  all 
the  more  closely  to  our  gallant  chief,  because  of  the  calumny  with 
which  he  was  assailed.  [Applause.] 

If  the  votes  of  abolitionists  corrupt  the  blood  of  a  candidate,  and 
inoculate  him  with  the  disease,  it  would  be  good  policy  in  them  to 
distribute  their  suffrages  among  Breckinridge,  Douglas,  and  Bell,  and 
thus  abolitionize  the  whole  concern.  It  would  make  no  odds  to  them 
who  wins,  and  all  agitation  would  cease.  But  I  hope  nobody  who  has 
the  itch  will  vote  for  Mr.  Lincoln.  [Applause  and  laughter.] 

Mr.  Reed  is  painfully  impressed  with  the  rescue  of  a  fugitive  slave 
in  one  of  the  northwestern  States.  So  painful  is  it  to  his  feelings  that 
he  devotes,  including  his  appendix,  nearly  three  closely  printed  pages 
to  the  subject,  giving  the  details  with  a  minuteness  that  might  lead 
one  to  suppose  that,  he  belongs  to  the  reportorial  corps  of  the  Pennsyl¬ 
vanian.  It  is  true  that  such  things  occasionally  happen,  and  I  condemn 
as  emphatically  as  Mr.  Reed  all  such  resistance  to  the  laws  of  the  land. 
He  distinctly  admits,  that  prior  to  the  decision  of  the  Prigg  case  by 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  the  recapture  and  surrender 
of  fugitive  slaves  was  as  simple  and  easy  as  the  surrender  of  a  fugitive 
from  justice.  What,  then,  has  wrought  this  change  in  the  North  ?  and 
with  whom  rests  the  responsibility?  The  difficulty  commenced,  not 
with  a  New  England  judge,  as  the  gentleman  asserts,  but  with  the 
State  of  Maryland.  In  1826,  that  State  appointed  a  commission,  con¬ 
sisting,  I  think,  of  three  of  her  distinguished  citizens,  to  make  applica¬ 
tion  to  the  Legislature  of  Pennsylvania  for  the  passage  of  a  law  to 
facilitate  the  capture  and  surrender  of  slaves  escaping  into  this  State. 
This  resulted  in  the  passage  of  such  an  act  as  was  required,  entitled 
“  An  Act  to  give  effect  to  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  relative  to  fugitives  from  labor,  for  the  protection  of 
free  people  of  color,  and  to  prevent  kidnapping.”  It  was  approved  on 
the  25th  of  March,  1826. 

We  got  along  smoothly  enough  with  our  neighbors,  as  Mr.  Reed 
admits,  until  a  man  by  the  name  of  Prigg,  a  citizen  of  Maryland,  was 
arrested,  tried,  and  convicted  in  York  county  of  kidnapping,  under  the 
provisions  of  that  act.  Prigg  was  represented  by  counsel  employed  by 
the  State  of  Maryland  to  defend  him.  There  was  no  difficulty  or  disa¬ 
greement  about  the  facts,  but  the  defence  set  up  was,  that  the  act 
under  which  he  was  convicted  was  unconstitutional,  and  therefore  void. 
For  the  purpose  of  testing  the  question  thus  raised  by  our  sister  State, 
in  order  to  relieve  one  of  her  citizens  from  punishment  for  the  offence 
he  had  committed,  Pennsylvania,  at  the  instance  of  the  State  of  Mary¬ 
land,  passed  a  special  act  on  the  22d  of  May,  1839,  by  which  the  case 
was  finally  removed  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  question  there  raised  as  to  the  power  of  State  legislation  over 
that  part  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  which  relates  to 
fugitive  slaves. 

The  question  was  argued  in  that  Court  by  the  Attorney  General  of 
Pennsylvania,  the  late  Ovid  F.  Johnson,  in  support  of  the  law,  and  by 


22 


the  counsel  of  the  State  of  Maryland  on  the  other  side.  The  Court,  at 
January  Term,  1842,  unanimously  adjudged  the  act  of  Pennsylvania,  , 

upon  which  the  indictment  of  Prigg  was  founded,  to  be  unconstitutional 
and  void.  It  was  also  held  by  a  majority  of  the  Court  that  the  States 
had  no  right  to  legislate  on  the  subject  at  all,  not  even  for  the  purpose 
of  facilitating  the  arrest  of  fugitives.  That  the  States  might  prohibit 
their  own  officers  from  taking  jurisdiction  in  such  cases,  although  the 
act  of  Congress  of  1193  conferred  such  authority  on  the  State  magis¬ 
trates.  It  was  further  held,  that  the  owner  of  a  fugitive  slave  had  a 
right,  under  the  Constitution,  to  follow  him  into  any  State,  capture 
and  remove  him,  provided  he  could  do  so  without  committing  a  breach 
of  the  peace.  Thus  it  was  “  that  all  local,  auxiliary  legislation”  on  the 
subject  was  annuled.  The  trouble  commenced  not  with  a  New  En¬ 
gland  judge,  as  Mr.  Reed  most  unfairly  asserts,  but  with  the  State  of 
Maryland.  [Cheers.] 

The  case  is  reported  in  16  Peters,  page  539. 

This  decision  left  the  free  colored  population  of  the  southern  counties  < 

of  this  State  without  protection.  Several  of  them  were  kidnapped 
by  bands  of  miscreants  organized  for  the  purpose,  and  there  was  strong 
reason  to  suspect  that  certain  justices  of  the  peace  and  constables  in 
our  own  State  gave  countenance  to  the  outrages,  under  color  of  the 
Act  of  Congress  of  1193.  This  led  to  the  Pennsylvania  Act  of  1841, 
prohibiting  such  officers  from  exercising  any  jurisdiction  whatever  in 
such  cases,  and  denying  the  use  of  our  jails  for  the  imprisonment  or 
detention  of  persons  claimed  as  fugitive  slaves.  Then  followed  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  of  Congress,  passed  in  1850,  which  contains  pro¬ 
visions  that  have  rendered  it  offensive  to  thousands  of  high-toned  men 
of  the  North,  who  have  no  sympathy  whatever  with  abolitionists,  and 
who  are  as  loyal  to  the  Constitution  as  Mr.  Reed,  or  any  other  man. 

It  provides  among  other  things,  that  an  officer  charged  with  the  execu¬ 
tion  of  a  warrant  for  the  arrest  of  a  fugitive,  may  call  any  citizen  to  his 
aid,  and  thereupon  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  that  citizen  to  assist  in  the 
capture.  George  Alberti,  with  such  a  warrant  in  his  hands,  may  tap 
Mr.  Reed,  or  any  other  citizen,  on  the  shoulder,  and  order  him  to  go 
into  Bedford  street,  or  elsewhere,  and  assist  him  in  the  capture  of  a 
runaway  negro.  The  Commissioner  who  issues  the  warrant  may 
summon  all  the  people  of  the  county  for  the  same  purpose,  and  the 
law  requires  them  to  obey.  When  the  fugitive  is  arrested,  if  the  Com¬ 
missioner  surrender  him  as  a  slave,  he  is  entitled  to  a  fee  of  ten 
dollars ;  if  he  turns  out  to  be  a  free  man,  he  receives  a  fee  of  five 
dollars.  These  insulting  provisions  in  the  bill  were  totally  unnecessary 
to  its  efficient  operation ;  but  southern  members  of  Congress  madly 
and  arrogantly  demanded  them,  and  succeeded  in  their  object.  If  a 
slave  escapes  from  Mr.  Keitt,  of  South  Carolina,  and  happens  to  reach 
Philadelphia,  the  merchant,  the  clerk,  the  mechanic,  the  doctor,  the 
lawyer,  and  even  the  bishop  must  all  turn  out,  if  they  are  ordered  to  do 
so  by  a  United  States  Commissioner,  and  assist  in  securing  the  fugitive 
and  returning  him  to  his  owner  ! 

That  this  provision  of  the  law  was  unnecessary,  is  manifest  from  the 


23 


fact  that  it  has  never  been  acted  upon.  But  there  it  stands,  a  burning 
and  gratuitous  insult  to  every  freeman  in  the  North;  and  it  is  no 
wonder  that  the  law  is  unpopular.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  distinctly  declares  that  fugitives  shall  be  surrendered  to  the 
persons  to  whom  their  services  are  due,  and  it  is  our  duty  to  respect 
it.  T  do  not  doubt  that  a  law  to  make  effectual  that  provision  of  the 
Constitution,  free  from  the  offensive  and  degrading  provisions  to  which 
I  have  referred,  would  be  obeyed  in  the  North  as  fully  and  universally 
as  any  other  law  on  the  Statute-book.  The  laws  of  a  Republican 
government  respecting  personal  rights  and  obligations,  should  conform 
as  nearly  as  circumstances  will  admit,  to  the  enlightened  popular 
sentiment ;  because  public  opinion,  and  not  the  point  of  the  bayonet, 
is  the  efficient  engine  for  their  enforcement.  [Applause.] 

I  do  not  justify  the  violation  of  the  law  to  which  Mr.  Reed  has  re¬ 
ferred,  and  we  are  not  supporting  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency  who 
does  so,  or  who  is  responsible  or  answerable  for  it  in  any  sense.  It  is 
much  more  adroit  than  just  to  reproach  Mr.  Lincoln  for  the  offences  of 
Massachusetts  and  Wisconsin,  on  the  ground  that  he  is  likely  to  re¬ 
ceive  the  electoral  votes  of  those  States. 

While  the  gentleman  was  looking  up  and  manufacturing  charges 

against  “the  compact,  fanatical  North,”  and  was  overflowing  with 

sympathy  for  “the  stricken  and  insulted  South,”  he  would  have  done 

well  to  consider  what  laws  of  the  countrv  have  been  set  at  defiance  in 

*/ 

that  quarter,  to  which  all  his  affections,  and  all  his  vaunted  hereditary 
loyalty  to  Pennsylvania  and  Philadelphia,  so  suddenly — in  the  twink¬ 
ling  of  a  Chinese  eye — have  been  transferred.  [Great  laughter.]  He 
might  then  have  answered  his  own  challenge  to  the  friends  of  Mr.  Lin¬ 
coln,  to  tell  him  what  is  meant  by  Southern  aggression.  He  used  to 
know  very  well.  No  man  understood  it  better  or  condemned  it  more 
eloquently  than  he.  “  Has  the  South,”  he  wishes  to  know,  “  ever  stolen 
any  of  our  property  from  us  ?”  If  his  question  be  limited  to  the  circle 
of  Democratic  politicians  in  the  South  with  whom  he  is  now  acting,  I 
answer — they  have. 

He  himself  belonged  to  and  was  the  property  of  Pennsylvania  ;  by 
which4!  mean  that  he  owed  service  and  allegiance  to  the  State,  mental 
and  physical  service,  which,  according  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and 
the  new  school  of  Constitutional  lawyers,  converts  the  man  himself 
into  a  chattel  and  makes  him  property.  [Laughter  and  cheers.]  He 
is  now  a  fugitive — a  fugitive  from  the  North.  South  Carolina  has 
caught  him,  and  holds  him,  and  claims  him.  It  is  true  we  have  made 
no  demand  for  his  surrender,  but  that  does  not  change  the  moral  aspect 
of  the  case.  The  South  should  send  him  back,  she  knows  he  is  none 
of  hers.  She  should  hang  the  life  of  General  Reed  about  his  neck,  and 
turn  his  face  to  the  north  star  !  [Great  laughter.] 

The  gentleman  assures  his  fellow  citizens  that,  if  they  “ask  the 
most  or  the  least  declamatory  railer  against  the  South  who  is  now 
marshalling  the  forces  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  to  tell  you  what  he  means  by 
Southern  aggression,  he  won’t  know  what  to  say,  short  of  offensive 
generalities.” 


j 


24 


I  am  no  railer  against  the  South,  and  never  have  been.  I  have 
friends  and  kindred  there  whom  I  respect  and  love,  and  I  have  a  share, 
like  all  of  you,  in  the  tomb  of  Washington,  and  the  glories  of  York- 
town,  which  is  not  for  sale.  [Cheers.]  But  I  will  endeavor  to  answer 
the  gentleman’s  question. 

Aggression,  according  to  the  lexicographers,  means  the  first  attack 
or  act  of  hostility,  the  first  act  of  injury,  or  the  first  act  leading  to  a 
controversy.  And  Southern  aggression  means  acts  of  that  character 
by  Southern  politicians,  leading  to  controversies  with  the  North.  The 
claim  of  the  South  to  introduce  slavery  into  all  the  territory  of  the 
country  purchased  by  the  government  or  obtained  by  conquest,  accom¬ 
panied  by  threats  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  if  refused,  was  an  act 
of  aggression.  Such  a  claim  and  such  threats  were  made  in  1818,  and 
led  to  the  Missouri  controversy  and  Compromise. 

The  claim  was  again  made  by  the  South  in  1849,  accompanied  by 
the  same  threats,  in  anticipation  of  the  probable  formation  of  a  free 
State  out  of  part  of  the  territory  acquired  from  Mexico  ;  and  of  any 
action  by  Congress  excluding  slavery  from  the  territory.  A  sectional 
address,  prepared  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  signed  by  the  Southern  mem¬ 
bers  of  Congress,  was  issued  to  the  Southern  States,  and  responded  to 
by  several  of  them,  in  language  of  defiance  to  the  North,  and  treason 
to  the  Constitution. 

The  claim  was  repeated  by  the  South,  with  the  same  threats,  in 
1850,  when  California  applied  for  admission  as  a  State,  with  a  free 
constitution  adopted  by  her  own  citizens,  twelve  thousand  votes  being 
cast  in  its  favor,  and  only  eight  hundred  and  eleven  against  it.  Her 
admission  was  violently  opposed  by  the  South,  because  her  citizens 
had  voted  to  exclude  slavery.  Mr.  Calhoun  said  it  was  a  monstrous 
assumption.  She  was  finally  admitted,  on  the  adoption  of  the  Com¬ 
promise  measures,  which  the  North  accepted  as  a  final  settlement  of 
the  slavery  question. 

Notwithstanding  the  Compromise,  the  question  of  disunion  was  kept 
alive  in  the  South,  and  the  peace  of  the  country  threatened.  In  South 
Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  open  ground  was  taken 
in  favor  of  secession  and  a  Southern  Confederacy.  Several  presses  in 
Georgia  advocated  immediate  secession.  A  leading  paper  at  Colum¬ 
bus,  said: 

“We  have  all  along  contended  that  the  admission  of  California  would  fill  to 
overflowing  the  poisoned  cup  of  degradation,  which  the  North  has  for  years  been 
preparing  for  the  South.  *  *  *.  We  abandon  the  Union  as  an  engine  of 
infamous  oppression.  *  *  *.  Henceforth  we  are  for  war  upon  the  government ;  it 
has  existed  but  for  our  ruin,  and  to  the  extent  of  our  ability  to  destroy  it,  it  shall 
exist  no  longer.” 

In  November  of  the  same  year,  the  Nashville  Convention  assembled, 
with  representatives  from  Virginia,  Alabama,  Florida,  Mississippi, 
Georgia,  Tennessee  and  South  Carolina.  That  body  adopted  a  series 
of  resolutions,  one  of  which  asserted  the  right  of  any  State  to  with¬ 
draw  from  the  Union.  Another  was  in  the  following  words  : 

“  Resolved,  That  all  the  evils  anticipated  by  the  South,  and  which  occasioned 


25 


this  convention 'to  assemble,  have  been  realized  by  the  failure  to  extend  the 
Missouri  line  of  Compromise  to  the  Pacific  ocean,  by  the  admission  of  California 
as  a  State — by  the  organization  of  the  territorial  government  for  Utah  and  New 
Mexico,  without  giving  adequate  protection  to  the  property  of  the  South — by  the 
dismemberment  of  Texas,  by  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade,  and  the  emanci¬ 
pation  of  slaves  carried  into  the  District  of  Columbia  for  sale.” 

They  demanded  protection  to  slavery  in  the  territories  as  a  consti¬ 
tutional  right.  They  recommended  the  slaveholding  States  to  meet 
in  a  congress  or  convention,  and  on  failure  to  obtain  a  full  recognition 
of  all  their  rights  which  they  claimed,  to  provide  for  their  future  safety 
and  independence.  All  these  were  so  many  acts  of  aggression.  Add 
to  them  the  other  aggressions  complained  of  in  Mr.  Reed’s  resolution 
of  1855 — the  Nebraska  and  Kansas  measures — the  abrogation  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise  line — the  lawless  and  violent  conduct  of  indi¬ 
viduals  in  Kansas,  and  then  his  fifth  resolution,  declaring  that  those 
measures  were  a  wanton  renewal  of  sectional  agitation  for  which  the 
North  was  not  responsible,  and  still  the  roll  is  unfinished. 

They  attempted,  under  General  Jackson’s  administration,  to  nullify 
the  acts  of  Congress  which  gave  incidental  protection  to  American 
industry. 

They  not  only  assert  that  the  Constitution  authorizes  Congress  to 
pass  laws  for  the  protection  of  their  slave  property  in  the  territories, 
but  threaten,  in  case  such  laws  are  not  passed,  that  the  Union  shall  be 
dissolved;  and  they  deny  the  right  of  Congress  to  protect  the  property 
of  the  poor  white  man  of  the  North,  which  consists  not  of  negroes,  but 
of  the  products  of  his  own  industry,  and  threaten  if  you  do  protect  it, 
that  the  Union  shall  be  dissolved.  [Cheers.] 

They  deny  the  power  of  Congress  to  make  appropriations  for  the 
improvement  of  our  rivers  and  harbors,  while  they  assert  its  authority 
to  levy  a  tax  of  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  upon  the  people  for  the 
purchase  of  Cuba.  [Cheers.] 

They  vote  in  almost  solid  column  against  the  appropriations  for  the 
extension  of  our  lighthouse  system,  made  necessary  for  the  safety  of 
our  commerce,  by  recent  discoveries  of  new  channels  and  new  shoals 
on  our  coasts — and  now  contemplate  a  new  aggression  by  demanding 
the  repeal  of  the  law  which  declares  the  African  slave  trade  to  be 
piracy. 

They  sanction  and  encourage  buccaneering  expeditions  for  the  inva¬ 
sion  and  seizure  of  whole  districts  of  country  belonging  to  a  people 
with  whom  they  have  no  cause  of  quarrel ;  and  when  the  lawless  in¬ 
vaders  are  driven  off  and  their  robber  chief  returns  with  the  blood  of 
his  innocent  victims  upon  his  hands,  they  receive  him  into  their  houses 
as  a  gentleman  and  a  hero,  and  supply  him  with  the  means  to  renew 
his  horrible  work  of  plunder  and  of  death.  [Cheers.]  And  when  a 
daring  fanatic,  instructed  by  such  an  example,  gathers  around  him  a  little 
band  of  vagabonds,  and  crosses  the  borders  of  Virginia  on  a  similar 
expedition,  they  charge  the  entire  North  with  complicity  in  his  crime, 
and  declare  it  to  be  the  result  of  the  doctrines  taught  by  Mr.  Reed  and 
his  grandfather.  [Cheers  and  laughter.] 


26 


Such  are  some  of  the  aggressions  and  inconsistencies  of  those  demo¬ 
cratic  politicians  of  the  South  with  whom  Mr.  Reed  is  now  associated, 
who  are  seeking  to  convert  a  government  founded  on  principles  of 
morality,  justice  and  beneficence,  into  a  mighty  engine  of  oppression, 
to  be  used  for  the  sole  purpose  of  extending  and  strengthening  the 
institution  of  slavery.  Driven  out  of  Pennsylvania  by  the  humanity 
and  virtue  of  the  men  of  the  revolution,  and  acting  upon  the  doctrine 
recently  asserted  by  Mr.  Yancey,  that  it  is  easier  to  degrade  the  white 
man  than  to  improve  the  slave,  this  restless  spirit  of  aggressive  slavery 
again  enters  our  borders  and  finds  a  willing  instrument  in  a  former  foe. 

“  Here  perhaps 

Some  advantageous  act  may  be  achieved 
By  sudden  onset ;  either  with  hell-fire 
To  waste  his  whole  creation,  or  possess 
All  as  our  own,  and  drive,  as  we  were  driven, 

The  puny  habitants  ;  or,  if  not  drive, 

Seduce  them  to  our  party,  that  their  Grod 
May  prove  their  foe,  and  with  repenting  hand 
Abolish  his  own  works  !” 

[Tumultuous  applause.] 

If  he  were  an  honest  man  when  he  wrote  the  life  of  his  grandfather 
— if  that  work  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  history,  and  not  as  fiction  ;  if  he 
were  honest  in  his  former  opinions  that  slavery  is  wrong  per  se ,  sec¬ 
tional  and  not  national,  and  that  Congress  ought  not  to  protect  it :  if 
he  were  honest  when  he  declared,  in  his  well-considered  resolutions  of 
1855,  that  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  measures  were  a  wanton  renewal 
of  sectional  agitation  for  which  the  North  was  not  responsible  ;  that 
those  measures,  with  the  abrogation  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line, 
were  abhorrent  to  the  people  of  the  North,  and  ought  to  be  redressed ; 
if  he  were  honest  in  the  expression  of  his  earnest  hope  that  the  action 
of  a  Whig  convention  to  assemble  in  1855,  might  be  unreserved  in  the 
enunciation  of  the  principles  which  he  then  avowed,  and  Republican 
in  every  sense  ;  if  he  were  honest  in  all  these,  what  are  we  to  think 
of  him  now  ? 

I  can  understand  how  a  man,  who  has  pursued  a  long  career  of 
folly  and  of  crime,  may  be  suddenly  arrested  in  his  course  by  a  flash 
of  conscience  that,  makes  the  higher  law,  written  by  the  finger  of  God 
upon  his  heart,  plain  to  his  understanding,  and  turns  him  from  the 
error  of  his  ways.  But  I  can  conceive  of  no  rational  or  moral  excuse  for 
one,  who  has  spent  a  longlife  in  bringing  the  palpable,  practical  truths 
of  Christianity  to  bear  upon  and  strengthen  the  political  objection  to 
the  extension  of  slavery,  to  fly  suddenly  from  his  natural  orbit — a 
circle  of  living  light — and  become  the  willing  and  truculent  assailant 
of  all  that  he  has  ever  written — all  that  he  has  ever  professed  before 
God  and  man — and  by  indirection,  at  least,  of  all  whom  he  has  ever 
loved  and  honored,  within  and  without  the  line  of  his  ancestry.  [Tu¬ 
multuous  applause.]  I  cannot  measure  the  height  that  he  has  fallen, 
for  I  cannot  fathom  the  dark  abyss  where  he  now  moves,  in  counsel 


with  the  spirits  of  discord  and  disunion.  For  his  own  sake,  I  could 
hope  that  he  has  found  that 

“  Slow  and  silent  stream, 

*  *  *  *  whereof  who  drinks 

Forthwith  his  former  state  and  being  forgets : 

Forgets  both  joy  and  grief,  pleasure  and  pain.” 

[Great  applause.] 

Better  for  him  had  he  died  before  the  faith  of  his  fathers  was  ex¬ 
changed  for  the  already  faded  honors  of  a  foreign  mission.  [Cheers.] 
For  then,  history  might  have  said  that  he  was  valiant  for  freedom, 
vindicated  the  rights  of  humanity,  withstood  temptation,  and  carried 
to  his  grave  the  respect  of  many  good  and  virtuous  men.  And  if 
those  who  live  and  die  in  the  same  faith  be  permitted  to  renew  their 
associations,  when  raised  as  spiritual  bodies,  he  would  have  enjoyed 
the  unspeakable  pleasure  of  spending  his  eternity  with  that  ancestor 
whose  virtues  he  has  so  often  extolled,  and  whose  public  career  he 
once  deemed  so  worthy  of  emulation.  [Great  applause.] 

Gentlemen,  there  are  other  points  presented  in  this  ultra-sectional 
speech  which  I  should  be  glad  to  notice  fully,  if  time  and  my  own 
strength  would  permit,  and  your  patience  would  endure.  I  can  but 
give  them  a  passing  glance. 

A  tariff  man  all  his  life,  he  now  tells  his  fellow-citizens  that  “  the 
great  southern  staple  holds  the  world  in  tribute  and  more  than  any¬ 
thing  keeps  the  peace  ;  and  that  peace  is  worth  all  the  protection 
which  legislative  commercial  restrictions  promise.” 

You  will  observe  that  he  is  now  against  the  tariff.  Cotton  is  peace 
— peace  is  protection — therefore  cotton  is  protection  !  Protection  is 
peace — peace  is  cotton — therefore  protection  is  cotton  !  It  is  all 
cotton.  [Laughter.]  Cotton  is  worth  more  than  truth,  else  Mr.  Reed 
would  not  have  said  that  Mr.  Lincoln  is  shaking  his  fist  at  the  South  ; 
else  he  would  not  have  said  that  Mr.  Lincoln  tells  the  South  that  no 
man  shall  be  permitted  to  be  free  who  owns  slaves.  This  is  not  clever, 
because  it  is  not  true.  The  gentleman  is  shaking  his  own  fist  at  the 
North,  “  the  compact,  fanatical  north.”  He  would  be  glad  to  drive  the 
spirit  of  his  grandfather  out  of  Pennsylvania.  [Great  cheering.]  He 
would  be  glad  to  blot  out  from  our  recollections  those  “  manly  opinions 
of  John  Sergeant,  Horace  Binney,  Samuel  Breck,  Thos.  P.  Cope,  and 
Wm.  J.  Duane,  which  made  Philadelphia  respected.”  [Cheers.]  He 
would  convince  you,  if  he  could,  and  he  tries  to  do  it,  for  he  asserts  it, 
that  Pennsylvania’s  true  interests  lie  in  the  South  and  Southwest.  He 
says  they  are  our  natural  allies  !  But  he  fails  to  tell  us  what  the  South 
and  Southwest  have  done  for  us  as  allies.  They  have  opposed  all 
legislation  for  the  protection  of  our  industry — the  three  old  Whig 
States  excepted. 

They  took  from  us  the  tariff  of  1842,  for  which  you  will  hardly  be 
content  to  accept  cotton  as  a  substitute.  They  oppose  the  extension 
of  our  light-house  system,  so  necessory  to  our  commerce  and  to  the 
lives  of  American  seamen.  They  oppose  your  Homestead  bill  because 


28 


they  are  opposed  to  white  men  settling  in  the  territories  unless  they 
take  slaves  with  them.  They  want  no  other  relation  there  but  that  of 
master  and  slave.  Listen  to  what  Governor  Adams,  of  South  Carolina, 
one  of  these  new  found  natural  allies,  says  to  the  Legislature  of  that 
State  in  his  message  of  1856  : 

“  It  is  much  better  that  our  drays  should  be  driven  by  slaves,  that  our  factories 
should  be  worked  by  slaves,  that  our  hotels  should  be  served  by  slaves,  that  our 
locomotives  should  be  managed  by  slaves,  than  that  we  should  be  exposed  to  the 
introduction  from  any  other  quarter  of  a  population  alien  to  us  by  birth,  training 
and  education,  and  which,  in  the  process  of  time,  must  lead  to  the  conflict  be¬ 
tween  capital  and  labor  which  makes  it  so  difficult  to  maintain  free  institutions  in 
all  wealthy  and  civilized  nations  where  such  institutions  as  our  ("slave  institution) 
do  not  exist.” 

Again  he  says  : 

“If  we  cannot  supply  the  demand  for  slave  labor,  then  we  must  expect  to 
supply  with  a  species  of  labor  we  do  not  want,  and  which  is,  from  the  very  nature 
of  things,  antagonistic  to  our  institutions.” 

You  will  observe  that  Governor  Adams  and  Mr.  Reed  differ  slightly. 
The  Governor  wouldn’t  have  you  as  an  ally  He  would  be  happy  to 
accept  Africa,  or  Cuba,  but  no  white  settlement — no  State  like  Penn¬ 
sylvania,  that  has  been  innoculated  by  Mr.  Reed  and  his  ancestor  with 
a  pestilent  spirit  of  liberty  [Cheers.] 

The  gentleman  is  much  concerned  on  the  subject  of  the  tariff.  He 
objects  to  the  resolution  of  the  Chicago  Convention  relating  to  that 
subject,  because  he  considers  it  involved  in  obscure  generalities  ; 
and  expresses  the  opinion  that  Pennsylvania  is  not  safe  in  the  com¬ 
pany  of  “the  compact,  fanatical  North.”  Mr.  Adams,  of  Massachu¬ 
setts,  who  made  a  speech  in  this  hall  some  time  since,  did  not  refer 
to  the  tariff,  and  Mr.  Reed  considers  that  very  suspicious.  He  admits 
that  the  South,  our  “  natural  ally,”  is  free  trade,  and  has  a  proposition 
to  make  by  which  we  shall  be  saved.  Here  it  is  : 

“  If  Pennsylvania,  vigilant  of  her  interests,  has  to  choose  between  two  schools 
of  free  trade,  that  which  is  candidly,  and  manfully,  and  honestly  professed  by  the 
South,  and  that  which  is  in  masquerade  in  the  North  and  East,  her  chance  will  be 
better  with  the  first,  for  all  the  tariff  she  needs  (especially  if  she  earns  confident  and 
gratitude  by  fidelity  to  the  Constitution ,  the  Union,  and  the  adjudicated  rights  of  the 
South'),  than  if  led  away  from  the  path  in  which  she  has  always  walked,  turned 
from  the  safe  democratic  groove  in  which  she  has  always  moved,  she  trusts  herself 
to  that  vast  conglomeration  of  fanatical  and  mercenary  communities  and  bankrupt 
railroad  corporations — for  such,  almost  without  exception,  are  the  Northern  and 
Northwestern  Railroad  Companies,  which  at  this  moment  constitute  the  great 
Lincoln  army  of  the  North.” 

Gentlemen,  that  is  pretty  strong.  Coupled  with  the  sad  conviction 
which  presses  upon  him,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  friends  regard 
slavery  as  wrong,  per  se,  and  that  Congress  has  no  right,  under  the 
Constitution,  to  authorize  the  armies  of  the  United  States  to  be  em¬ 
ployed  for  the  subjugation  of  freedom  in  those  territories  where 
slavery  has  not  yet  entered,  it  looks  to  me,  very  much  like  a  farewell 
address  to  the  North.  [Cheers.]  Can  it  be  possible  that  Mr.  Bu¬ 
chanan  has  made  out  a  commission,  appointing  him  to  fill  the  vacancy 


29 


on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  to  be  pre- 
%  sented  as  the  reward  for  all  this  truculent  demonstration  against  free 

institutions  ? 

Has  he  the  promise  of  that  high  position  for  effecting  what  he  called, 
in  1851,  in  this  circular,  “  the  most  discreditable  local  combinations”  to 
defeat  our  candidates  for  Governor,  Congress,  the  State  Legislature, 
and  municipal  offices  ?  Cannot  three  honest  men  be  found — one  from 
the  Breckenridge,  one  from  the  Douglas,  and  one  from  the  Constitu¬ 
tional  Union  party — to  look  in  his  boot,  as  the  three  militia  men  did  in 
the  boot  of  Major  Andre,  for  the  terms  on  which  the  liberty  and  inde¬ 
pendence  of  the  North  are  to  be  surrendered  ?  [Tumultuous  applause.] 

Gentlemen,  the  resolution  of  the  Chicago  Convention  is  as  full  and 
free  from  ambiguity  on  the  subject  of  protection  to  the  industrial 
interests  of  the  country,  as  any  that  was  ever  passed  in  a  Whig 
National  Convention. 

And,  in  answer  to  all  the  artful  quibbling  of  the  gentleman,  I  have 
^  only  to  add  in  conclusion  on  this  point,  that,  at  the  very  last  session 

of  Congress,  every  Republican  in  both  Houses  recorded  his  vote  in 
favor  of  a  tariff  for  the  protection  of  our  industry.  They  formed  a 
solid  column,  not  merely  to  increase  the  duty  on  the  staples  of  Penn¬ 
sylvania — which  would  benefit  no  other  interest,  and  would  be  sec¬ 
tional  therefore — but  to  establish  a  system  and  a  principle,  under  which 
all  the  great  interests  of  the  entire  nation  would  be  raised  from  death 
into  vigorous,  active  life.  [Applause.] 

My  fellow  citizens,  I  did  not  come  here  to  indulge  a  personal  feeling 
of  unkindness  to  Mr.  Reed — for  it  is  not  in  my  heart.  I  came  to  ex¬ 
pose  the  duplicity,  the  selfishness  and  the  corruption  of  the  politician, 
and  vindicate  myself  and  those  with  whom  I  am  acting,  in  our  com¬ 
mon  efforts  to  elevate  honest  men  to  office,  through  whom  the 
government  may  be  administered  according  to  the  precedents  of  the 
fathers  ;  the  rights  of  the  people  respected  ;  concord,  peace  and  pros¬ 
perity  restored,  and  the  strength  of  the  nation  renewed.  [Cheers.] 

The  remedy  for  the  disturbance,  distrust  and  agitation  which  have 
prevailed  so  long  is  plain.  That  remedy  is  in  the  hands  of  the  people. 
The  persistent  and  irritating  efforts  of  corrupt  politicians  to  extend  the 
institution  of  slavery,  and  the  practical  right  of  three-fifths  of  all  the 
slaves  to  vote,  through  their  owners  for  representatives  in  Congress, 
has  for  its  sole  object,  the  perpetuation  of  their  own  power.  They 
must  be  checked.  No  concessions  we  have  ever  made  to  them  have 
availed,  to  preserve  the  peace  which  we  have  so  often  purchased. 
Pennyslvania  must  nail  her  ancient  banner  to  the  ark  of  the  Consti¬ 
tution,  and  proclaim  that,  henceforth,  the  free  territories  of  the  country 
are  for  free  men  and  free  institutions.  This,  and  this  alone  will  end 
the  struggle.  Slavery  will  remain  where  it  is,  a  complete  work — 
watched  by  its  masters  and  perhaps  admired  by  their  children — always 
secure  to  them  by  the  guarantees  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  till  it 
gradually  disappears  under  the  peaceful  influences  of  an  enlightened 
Christianity.  But  liberty  will  lead  the  van  in  the  holy  work  of  ex- 


30 


tending  her  own  empire  westward,  until  an  electric  flash  from  the  Pacific 
shall  announce  to  her  sister  Ocean — it  is  finished.  Esto  perpetual 

[On  the  conclusion  of  the  speech,  the  audience  expressed  their  appreciation  Gf 
it  by  three  hearty  cheers  for  the  speaker,  and  separated  with  cheers  for  Lincoln 
and  the  People’s  candidates.] 


